Using Christ's Name to Mislead?

[SelahJoy]

...the Iraqis...are the ones we are trying to bring freedom/democrcy to at great expense in lives and material from America. Therefore prayers are needed for both America and Iraq, that God's will be done...

ollie

 

Ollie,

Wow!  I agree with your prayers!   Wouldn't our Father Lord Jesus Holy Spirit be glorified if homeland America and the deployed military personnel experience revival?  And I trust it is true that the Iraqi people, whom the Lord is calling to Himself, are also being touched by the heart of God!  May we keep praying!

[Soldier4Christ]

This is indeed a wonderful thread.

The following photo is a picture of some Christian Iraqis worshipping in the open because their church was destroyed.




This is one of another Christian church.





The following picture is of a Christian church that had just been destroyed by a car bomb. This happened in Nov of 2004.




Before the war started in Iraq Christians were left somewhat alone as long as they did not attempt to proselytize.

In the last year Iraqi Christians have become a target of the insurgents (terrorists). Many blame the U.S. for this. The Iraqi Christians have started to proselytize, making themselves more openly known. Between this and the fact that the terrorists want to control the people through fear in an attempt to turn others away from Jesus and against the U.S. is the actual reason behind it.

It has caused many Iraqi Christians to flee the country. Yet there are still others that are staying, refusing to be cow towed.

As SelahJoy and Ollie said we need to be praying for the Iraqi people also.

One more thing that I would like to point out. We also need to pray for the terrorists, that God gives his children complete victory over them in one way or another, hopefully that God opens their eyes and turns them away from their current path.

[cris]

AMEN.


I've been praying for our troops but had really forgotten to pray for the Iraqi people, whoops.  I do pray that God will cover the US with a web of His angels to prevent any further terrorist attacks.  I also pray that a well will spring up in the US and the streams from it would point to those terrorist cells here in the US, and that they would be brought to justice.

Also, continue to pray for wisdom, courage, strength, guidance, direction, knowledge and discernment for our President, Vice President and their Administration.

Grace and peace,
cris

[Soldier4Christ]

Amen to that Cris.

Here is some more news on Christianity in Iraq.


Evangelicals building a base among Iraqis
Other Christians, Muslims see threat

By Caryle Murphy, Washington Post  |  June 26, 2005

BAGHDAD -- With arms outstretched, the congregation at National Evangelical Baptist Church belted out a praise hymn backed up by drums, electric guitar, and keyboard. In the corner, slide images of Jesus filled a large screen. A simple white wooden cross adorned the stage, and worshipers sprinkled the pastor's Bible-based sermon with approving shouts of ''Amen!"

National Evangelical is Iraq's first Baptist congregation and one of at least seven new Christian evangelical churches established in Baghdad in the past two years. Its Sunday afternoon service, in a building behind a house on a quiet street, draws a couple of hundred worshipers who like the lively music and the focus on the Bible.

''I'm thirsty for this kind of church," Suhaila Tawfik, a veterinarian who was raised Catholic, said at one service. ''I want to go deep in understanding the Bible."

Tawfik is not alone. The US-led toppling of Saddam Hussein, who limited the establishment of new denominations, has altered the religious landscape of predominantly Muslim Iraq. A newly energized Christian evangelical activism here, supported by Western and other foreign evangelicals, is now challenging the dominance of Iraq's Christian denominations and raising concern from Muslim and Christian religious leaders about a threat to the status quo.

The evangelicals' numbers are not large -- perhaps a few thousand -- in the context of Iraq's estimated 800,000 Christians. But they are emerging at a time that the country's traditional churches have lost their privileged status and have seen their flocks depleted because of decades-long emigration. Now, traditional church leaders see the new evangelical churches filling up, not so much with Muslim converts but with such Christians as Tawfik seeking a new kind of worship experience.

''The way the preachers arrived here . . . with soldiers . . . was not a good thing," said Baghdad's Roman Catholic archbishop, Jean Sleiman. ''I think they had the intention that they could convert Muslims, though Christians didn't do it here for 2,000 years."

''In the end," Sleiman said, ''they are seducing Christians from other churches."

Iraq's new churches are part of evangelicalism's growing presence in several Middle Eastern countries. In neighboring Jordan, for example, ''the indigenous evangelical presence is growing and thriving," said Todd Johnson, a scholar of global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.

Nabeeh Abbassi, president of the Jordan Baptist Convention, said in an interview in Amman that there are about 10,000 evangelicals worshiping at 50 churches in Jordan.

While most evangelicals in Jordan come from traditional Christian denominations, Abbassi said, ''we're seeing more and more Muslim conversions."

Iraq's Christian population has been organized for centuries into denominations such as Chaldean Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. While Hussein's secular regime allowed freedom of worship, it limited new denominations, particularly if backed by Western churches.

During the US-led invasion in 2003, American evangelicals made no secret of their desire to follow the troops. Samaritan's Purse, the global relief organization led by the Rev. Franklin Graham -- who has called Islam an ''evil and wicked" religion -- and the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant denomination, were among those that mobilized missionaries and relief supplies.

Soon after Hussein's fall, they entered the country, saying their prime task was to provide Iraqis with humanitarian aid. But their strong emphasis on sharing their faith raised concerns among Muslims and some Christians that they would openly proselytize.

Then the security environment deteriorated in Iraq -- four Southern Baptist missionaries were killed, Westerners were kidnapped, and at least 21 churches were bombed -- forcing most foreign evangelicals to flee. But Iraqi evangelicals remain.

''For Christians, it's now democratic," said Nabil Sara, pastor at National Evangelical Baptist. Some church leaders, however, are questioning that premise.

''Evangelicals come here and I would like to ask: Why do you come here? For what reason?" said Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, head of the Eastern rite Chaldean Catholic Church, Iraq's largest Christian community.

In interviews, Delly and Sleiman were torn between their belief in religious freedom and the threat they see from the new evangelicalism. They also expressed resentment at what they perceive as the evangelicals' assumption that members of old-line denominations are not true Christians.

''If we are not Christians, you should tell us so we will find the right path," Delly said sarcastically. ''I'm not against the evangelicals. If they go to an atheist country to promote Christ, we would help them ourselves."

Sleiman charged that the evangelicals are sowing ''a new division" because ''churches here mean a big community with tradition, language, and culture, not simply a building with some people worshiping. If you want to help Christians here, help through the churches [already] here."

[cris]

 

Whoa, I'm not even sure how to respond to this news.  One second I'm reading that it's good, and the next second, I'm not.

I'm thinking (phew, do you smell that smoke? ) that what the Evangelicals are doing is going to backfire because of the Iraqi culture.  Or, am I just missing something here?

[Soldier4Christ]

 

Whoa, I'm not even sure how to respond to this news.  One second I'm reading that it's good, and the next second, I'm not.

I'm thinking (phew, do you smell that smoke? ) that what the Evangelicals are doing is going to backfire because of the Iraqi culture.  Or, am I just missing something here?

I had the same reaction to it. I thought wow this is a pretty good thing.  Then I started seeing jealousy, hatred and intolerance popping out. Is this caused by the Evangelicals or is it something inherit amongst the Iraqis from living in so many years of an intolerant govn't? Or as the article says from tight knit families that are intolerant of change in its family structure? Another thing that they are confronted with is that the people were not permitted to openly proselytize.


Whatever the case may be the Evangelicals have their plates full. One advantage in my eyes are that the Evangelicals do not have family ties and therefore can bridge that gap where the current churches there are tied to staying within certain families. So it does have its pros and cons.

[JudgeNot]

Pastor R said:

Then I started seeing jealousy, hatred and intolerance popping out.

As much as I dislike being the harbinger of ‘sour’ news, we don’t have to go to Iraq to see this kind of non-interaction.  We need to look no farther than this very board.  Satan continually intervenes in our discussions and sews discord between folks who approach our Lord from different directions.  

'Delly' said in the article:

If they go to an atheist country to promote Christ, we would help them ourselves.

 It sounds to me that although Delly doesn’t understand evangelicals, there is a bridge that cannot be burned.  That bridge is the ‘skeleton’ of the Body of Christ.  And when I say “it cannot be burned” I mean just that.  It is a fact we can depend on forever – the Body will never be broken.  If it could, God would not be God.

Maybe my view is overly simplistic.  But I like simple.    

[Soldier4Christ]

But I like simple.

Me too, and Salvation through Jesus Christ could not be more simple.