Posted on 05/20/2005 4:02:04 AM PDT by Cornpone
The head of Iraq's largest Christian community has denounced American evangelical missionaries in his country for what he said were attempts to convert poor Muslims by flashing money and smart cars.
Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, said on Thursday that many Protestant activists had come to Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and set up what he called "boutiques" to attract converts.
Delly said Iraq did not need missionaries as its Christian churches dated back long before Protestantism. As for trying to convert Muslims, he said: "You can't even talk about that here."
Christians make up 3% of Iraq's 26 million mostly Muslim population, the largest group being the 600,000 Chaldeans who are Eastern rite Catholics linked to the Vatican.
Saying the evangelicals were not real missionaries, Delly said they attracted poor youths with displays of money and taking them "out riding in cars to have fun".
"Then they take photos and send them here, to Germany, to the United States and say 'look how many Muslims have become Christian'," he said.
The patriarch declined to say if the missionaries were a challenge for his church or if US authorities supported them.
Trying to convert Muslims
The idea of converting Muslims has gained some support among US evangelicals since the September 11 attacks, but foreigners who evangelise in Islamic countries must keep very low profiles.
Iraqi Christians' heritage dates back about 1900 years (Note: This is over 600 years before Islam was even 'created' (added).
Some were active in Iraq in the first year after Saddam Hussein's overthrow, but deteriorating security since then probably means many have left, Baghdad residents say.
"There may be between 100 and 200 there now," said Todd Johnson, an expert on world Christianity at the evangelical Gordon-Conwell Seminary near Boston, Massachusetts.
"They're mostly aid workers, I don't think there is much regular evangelising," he said.
Many Muslim countries consider Christian missionaries as part of a Western campaign against Islam and punish both the preacher and the apostate Muslim severely. Unnamed Iraqi groups killed at least five evangelical missionaries last year.
Violent attacks
At least 20 Iraqis were also killed in bombings of Christian churches last year as unknown attackers stepped up pressure on non-Muslims there. Christian minorities in Muslim countries usually keep a low profile and do not evangelise.
Four US Baptist missionaries were killed in Iraq in March 2004 and seven South Korean Presbyterians were briefly kidnapped the following month.
That June, an armed group beheaded a South Korean truck driver who was an evangelical Christian.
Occupation
Delly had no overall figures for these missions but said he knew of 14 evangelical houses in one central Baghdad neighbourhood alone.
Armed guards protect Baghdad churches after attacks in 2004
"I don't know where their money comes from," he added.
The patriarch, who vigorously opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq and met French President Jacques Chirac - who also opposed it - on Wednesday, declined to comment on Washington's policy there or whether he had contacts with US authorities.
"Frankly, I try to avoid meeting them as much as possible," he said. "They are the occupiers. The occupied don't want to be occupied. That's human nature."
Delly, 77, ranks as an archbishop in the Catholic Church and is tipped as a possible future cardinal. Eastern rite prelates traditionally do not accept such honours but three - a Copt, an Assyrian and a Maronite - are now "princes of the Church".
Frankly, I never had much use for the attitude of American evangelicals who thought they were going to send some "old time religion" to a Christian church that was founded by a Babylonian Jew who went to Jerusalem for Passover and stayed for Pentecost where he heard Peter preach about Jesus the Nazarene.
Tell that to the 60% of the people who voted.
Man, what obediance to the great commission! What a light on the hill the Chaldean Church is!
Your suspicions may actually have some validity, but it sounds like this church needs SOMETHING. Life, hope, competition, a refresher course from some people that actually have the gall to take the Bible seriously, even if it means martyrdom. I'm not sure what has been lacking
Why they have'nt been witnessing in the first place. Are they afraid of death? That's silly -- that church sounds like it already dead to me if htey can criticize people that are preaching the Gospel.
Sometimes the age of a church just records how long it has been a fossil.
Maybe you don't but others do and there is a BIG difference between Catholicism and being a Protestant. Apparently Catholics feel threatened by the Protestants as well as exaggerating their antagonism towards Protestants by suggesting they are trying to buy them - LOL!
I doubt they're really trying to convert the Chaldeans all that hard, although they are Catholic, so I'm sure some of the Evangelicals will try to convert them just the same. It doesn't really matter that the resident Christians have given up proselytizing. If you look at religion as a commodity, having only 3% of the market means a lot of room for growth.
It's more a case of sour grapes on behalf of Catholics seeing Protestants making progress in conversion with Muslims. Catholics may also not want to upset the apple cart.
It's amazing how much you can save when you don't blow yourself up all the time.
I've noticed, though, that the Moslem/Christian conflicts in Iraq have taken the form of puritanical Shi'ites burning down liquor stores and movie theatres.
Could be Protestantism, which has elements with an even more puritanical streak, might fit in better with fundamental Iraqi attitudes. Besides, ecclesiastically speaking, Protestantism is much more in tune with Moslem forms of worship than is Catholicism. Odds favor the development of a native Iraqi syncratic Islamoprotestant movement.
Do you know any Chaldean Catholics?
I do. I know how many of them lost family members, homes and churches for their beliefs.
My daughter's friend in Kindergarten was born in Iraq. She taught me how to say, I'm cute in Iraqi.
When you spoke to her mother about life there, she couldn't even make it through a few sentances. Her mother was raped in front of her. Her brothers were missing.
The Chaldean Catholics have taken it on the chin for YEARS. The Protestants may be making progress with Muslims but the Catholic there have been beat on for years.
This happened when the Turks expelled Arabic speaking populations from South Eastern Anatolia. (NOTE: Armenians weren't the only guys who had problems with the Turks in that period).
For the most part these people are thoroughly assimilated now, but I grew up knowing about them as neighbors.
"It's more a case of sour grapes on behalf of Catholics seeing Protestants making progress in conversion with Muslims. Catholics may also not want to upset the apple cart."
>>Four US Baptist missionaries were killed in Iraq in March 2004 and seven South Korean Presbyterians were briefly kidnapped the following month.
That June, an armed group beheaded a South Korean truck driver who was an evangelical Christian.<<
Or perhaps Catholics are trying to warn the Protestants of something, because they've been there?
It's about time we quit recognizing this "religion" as such, until practices such as that are loudly denounced and repudiated by practitioners and clergy.
Are there any other significant religions operating like this? I don't believe so.
They are very nice people and the Mass at these churches are beautiful.
They are the reason why I get upset when someone generalizes that all Middle Easterners are our enemies.
They are my brothers.
Yeah. You can create a lot of discord by being ignorant of existing traditions.
Actually, the Catholic Church has traditionally been involved in missionary work far longer than the Protestant Churches, even after the Reformation.
The Jesuits, for example, were founded as a missionary organization. Catholics were first to missionize the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Francis Xavier was in Japan long before Protestants were even thinking about traveling the world spreading their faith. This is in part why there are more than twice as many Catholics in the world than members of all the Protestant denominations combined. These missionary efforts were very strong even into the 20th century.
Unfortunately, recently (and by that I mean within the last forty years) there has been an insurgence of modernist attitudes within the Church that have downplayed the importance of the call to missionary work throughout the world. This is not a matter of a change in official teaching, but rather of certain attitudes that have arisen that are not completely orthodox nor square with Holy Scripture. It is quite erroneous, however, to hold that these recent attitudes (which certainly are not espoused by all Catholics - there is still true missionary work going on within the Catholic Church today) are reflective of Catholic history as a whole.
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