Christians adapt to survive in the Mid East
Millions of people will never be able to return to their countries, so we must help them find a new home
It is three years since I left Baghdad, where I led the city’s last Anglican church till the danger became too great. With the apparent defeat of Isil, order seems to be returning to some parts of the Middle East. But the plight of Christians in the region remains incredibly serious.
The Christian communities here are some of the oldest in the world – many of the people I work with still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. But they are the persecuted minority of the minority: more Christians are dying and being displaced for their faith now than ever before in the 2,000 years of the history of our faith. The only place in the Middle East where Christians live in freedom is Israel, and even in Bethlehem, where once they made up 80 per cent of the population, today it is just 20 per cent.
These days I divide my time between Jerusalem and Jordan, where I run a school, clinic and relief programme for thousands of Christians living as refugees, having fled for their lives after the terrible rise of Isil in Iraq and Syria. For these people, who have lost everything, who have seen their children and loved ones murdered and their homes destroyed, the only thing that is absolutely real is that their Lord is risen. This week, the rousing cheer of Kam, Kam, Kam – Arisen, Arisen, Arisen – reverberates in the grotty premises they now call home. Families will pray to Jesus and ask for peace.
Lately, I have been teaching the children about praying to ask for something specific. I asked them to think about something they really wanted, and after some quiet reflection they decided they wanted to try a Burger King. The following week, missionaries came and took them for a Whopper. It was a very good lesson in having your prayers answered.
In times of conflict, people are forced to adapt to survive. Where once there was such division between Christian churches, in the wake of the rise of Isil I have seen the communities come together as one. Children tell me: “We have decided we are not Orthodox, or Catholic, or Anglican, we are just Christian. We are just the followers of the Messiah.” I do not consider them to be compromising on their beliefs; all that matters is that your faith is real.
In Syria, Christian minorities have faced an impossible choice. The abhorrent Assad regime offered shelter to Christians, so many feel a sense of allegiance to their President. They believe they are better with him than with anyone else. I, too, dread to think about what would happen if he were to be removed.
But not one Christian refugee family has said to me that they would return home now. They would feel strangers in their own country, for there is no guarantee of peace, of rights. They look now to Canada, Australia, or to the United States – to Chicago, where there are now more Iraqi Christians than there are in Baghdad.
President Trump has announced a prioritising of Christian refugees, and I am sad to say that the Syrian refugees being allowed into Britain are still almost exclusively Muslim, thanks to an unrealistic and unfair government policy.
In a region blighted by decades of violence and division, the Easter message of hope and forgiveness is so important. It was Longfellow who said: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” The fundamental of my work has always been listening to the other. Our children tell me they dream of the friends they have lost dancing with Jesus in heaven. All the time, I try to teach them to love our enemy and be kind to those who are most dangerous. Their love, their optimism, their compassion is humbling.
The Pope used his Easter message to call for an end to the “carnage” in Syria. In his Good Friday message, Prince Charles saluted “the fortitude of all those who, whatever their faith, are persecuted for remaining faithful to the true essence of their beliefs.” And as we reflect on the suffering and resurrection of our Lord, I too remind Christians in the West that for some the burden of the cross is great.
Christians are disappearing from the very lands where their religion took root. It may be too late now for them ever to return home, so Britain must stand with the persecuted church and help them find a place where they will be loved.