I asked a Bush administration State Department undersecretary way back in 2003 what the plan was to safeguard Iraq’s large Christian population after the fall of Saddam, given what had happened to those ancient populations in other Mideastern countries like Saudi Arabia.
He seemed surprised to learn that there WERE Christians in Iraq. It was a stunning moment for me, and not in a good way.
The center right has been worse than the left on this issue. Part of the problem is that many Evangelical Protestant churches teach contempt for Eastern Christians. The church I was raised in taught that non-Protestants were fake Christians who we shouldn’t care about except to convert them to our kind religion. We were explicity told not to think about the interests of Middle Eastern Chrisitans in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the wars Lebannon.
We see this attitude a lot from elderly conservatives who see everything through the lense of the Cold War. We saw it with Ted Cruz’s disgraceful attack on Middle Eastern Christians who invited him to speak at a conference about their own persecution.
The center right has been worse than the left on this issue. Part of the problem is that many Evangelical Protestant churches teach contempt for Eastern Christians. The church I was raised in taught that non-Protestants were fake Christians who we shouldn’t care about except to convert them to our kind religion. We were explicity told not to think about the interests of Middle Eastern Chrisitans in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the wars Lebannon.
We see this attitude a lot from elderly conservatives who see everything through the lense of the Cold War. We saw it with Ted Cruz’s disgraceful attack on Middle Eastern Christians who invited him to speak at a conference about their own persecution.