Caught Between the Islamists and the Evangelists

Even when Christian churches in Iraq have to contend with crime and anti Christian violence from the Moslem extremist they are under siege by the Evangelists of the west who are there to steal away their parishioners by bribing them with badly needed $25 dollars food basket to establish new competing churches. The Evangelists seem to be more interested in profiting from these people's miseries rather than helping them unselfishly at an hour of need.

At a time when the Christian community needs unity of faith and solidarity to sustain itself it is being fragmented even more by establishing competing theologies among it. The native churches have helped the survival of Christianity in the Middle East by uniting people around them but now their existence is threatened by the well financed missionaries determent to divide the Christian natives even more causing further tension within the community leading to further disunity. For the Evangelists this may be just another game but it has profound negative impact on the future of the community. Past such missions have resulted in undermining the cohessivness of a united people.

In reality the Evangelists do a disservice to Christianity by eroding the native's faith in the churches they have worshiped most of their life. They certainly have to wonder that if they were fooled before by their previous church what guarantee they have that their new denomination is not misleading them. Christianity seem to have become a commodity sold under different brands rather than a common faith. The bribe to switch makes them even more cynical because they sense that Christianity is still theologically at war with itself even where its existence is threatened.

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No Time for Fear
June 28, 2004

Iraqi Presbyterian minister finds refuge in 24-hour-a-day job

by Alexa Smith

RICHMOND, June 28 - The Rev. Younan Shiba is focusing on the future these days because the present is practically intolerable. The world is blowing up around him.

"I have no time for anxiety," says the 40-year-old pastor of two Presbyterian Churches in Baghdad - Assyrian Evangelical Presbyterian Church, in the center of the city, planted by U.S. and Iranian missionaries in 1920, with 120 families; and a newly planted church in the southeastern suburbs that draws
about 60 people to its worship services.

"I have a 24-hour job," Shiba says. "Two churches. I run a cultural center.Teach discipleship classes. I have pastoral calls."

Being so busy helps him fight the fear that has engulfed Baghdad, a city barely recognizable to its own residents, with kidnapping, rape and robbery rampant, and bombings almost every day.

"Explosions are the talk of the hour," he says. "But I keep working. And I take time alone for God; I try to map out time for that in my day."

Mapping his day is a challenge. His radio stays on 24 hours a day, helping him decide what he will do, where he will go and how he will get there. He said his coping strategy is from Psalm 73.

The psalmist, complaining that the rich get richer while the poor die in misery, decides to deal with his doubt by persisting in his work.

Shiba has done the same. And he shares the psalmist's advice with congregants who can see no end to their troubles.

After a recent discipleship class, he took 16 children outside to shovel away the rubble on streets near the church, which is in what used to be one of Baghdad's most affluent neighborhoods.

Now it is surrounded by chaos. There are lootings, rapes, robberies. Whatever you may say about the crimes of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, it did deter
crime. Now kids are stuck inside, for safety's sake; men complain that their depressed wives aren't keeping up household routines; and wives say their husbands are short-tempered because money is short and there is no work. Some are packing their bags and heading for the borders, fearing anarchy when the United States transfers power to the new Iraqi regime.

"People's nerves are always tense," Shiba says.

Even his own family switched apartments after two robberies that scared his two small daughters. On bad days, he said, his family accompanies him to the church, preferring to stick together.

Sticking together is what he'd like U.S. and Iraqi Presbyterians to do now. After all, he notes, the U.S. church is the mother church, having founded the one in Iraq. The United States has sent its military might, he says; now it is time to send power of a different kind.

He is philosophical about it. He wants missionaries trained in peacemaking sent to Iraq to help build a strong church that can take a leading role in
Iraqi society, and help to transform it. But he says the influx of NGOs and soldiers has brought big-money evangelical churches to Iraq, and they're "stealing the sheep" by offering $25 baskets of groceries to new members. Meanwhile, the churches that have been there for many decades, like the Presbyterians, have no resources to share with the people.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) sent a $30,000 grant to Iraq's six Presbyterian churches; Shiba got $6,000 of it. He says that's a drop in the bucket.

Families need help. Churches need repairs. And then there's outreach. (To support Iraqi Presbyterians, call PresbyTel in Louisville at (800) 872-3283 and contribute to account EO51722, the Peace Fund for Solidarity with the Churches.)

Shiba is clinging to a vision of what might be."Fear is a lack of trust in God; that's the spiritual definition of fear," he says. "So, when I hold onto an experience of trust, looking back on how the hand of God has moved - whether it is personal experience, family, community or in international relations - I can build a hope for the future."