What Would Jesus Tell Us?

At the time Jesus was crucified, Christianity was an insignificant Jewish sect, centered around the city of Jerusalem.  Soon after, the disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go, and there they encountered Jesus again.  Jesus said to them:

          "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

           Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them 

           in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 

           and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

           And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

           (Matthew 28:18 - 20)

Down through the centuries, this became known as "The Great Commission," and it has been the inspiration for missionaries and teachers of many Christian sects.  Indeed, the disciples Peter and Paul, and others who believed in what Jesus taught, took risky journeys among the Gentiles to teach and preach about Jesus.  Christianity eventually became the standard for the Roman Empire, converting much of Europe and the Middle East, sometimes by military force.

With my somewhat simplistic knowledge of the spread of our faith, I was surprised when I read recently that the place where this all started seems now to be moving in the opposite direction.

In the December 16, 2013 issue of the Christian Science Monitor Weekly, there was a lengthy article entitled "A Middle East Without Christians?"  The author was a Monitor staff writer, reporting from Bethlehem, West Bank.  She wrote, "Two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, Christianity is under assault in the Holy Land and across the entire Middle East, more than at any time in the past century."  She quotes some informed observers as speculating that one of the world's three great religions could vanish entirely from the region within a generation or two.

The Monitor staff writer continues:  "From Iraq, which has lost at least half of its Christians over the past decade, to Egypt, which saw the worst spate of anti-Christian violence in 700 years last summer, to Syria, where jihadists are killing Christians and burying them in mass graves, the followers of Jesus face violence, declining churches and ecumenical divides.  Today, fewer than 500,000 Christians remain in Iraq from a prewar population of 1 million to 1.4 million.  As many as 450,000 of the 2 million refugees fleeing Syria today are Christians.  Christians now make up only 5% of the population of the Middle East, down from 20% a century ago."

It would seem that as political Islam has gained support, Christians can no longer find refuge in a shared Arab identity with their Muslim neighbors, but are instead increasingly marooned by an emphasis on religious identity.  Calls for citizenship with equal rights are punctuated with stories of Islamist extremists demanding that Christians convert to Islam, or pay an exorbitant tax, or die, prompting many Christians to flee their country.

Historians tell us that there have been many cycles of Christian persecution and prosperity over the centuries.  But those who study these trends see three major differences between the problems Christians face today in the Middle East, and those of the past.  First, jihadist groups have access to weapons on a scale unknown in history.  Secondly, propaganda can be more easily spread than ever before.  Thirdly, because of Western involvement in the Middle East, local Christian communities are more easily accused of disloyalty to the own society, given the appearance that their loyalty is to the West. Whether today proves to be yet another ebb in the flow of Christian history, or something more fundamental, remains uncertain.

For those Christians whose families literally live in the present turmoil of the Middle East, what would Jesus tell them to do? We know from Matthew 5:44 that Jesus told his disciples, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."  Many Christians believe that the centrality of forgiveness in Jesus' teachings could, in fact, play a role in helping to reduce sectarian violence across the Middle East.  Could Christianity bring a new role model?  After all, Jesus and his immediate disciples were not warriors, and were not trying to establish political power.  If forgiveness is truly lived, would it keep Christianity vibrant in the Holy Land and beyond?  This is an approach that hinges more on the quality and fidelity of their faith than on the number of adherents. 

 Does this sound a bit like the story of the early Christians who started out as a tiny, persecuted minority, 2,000 years ago?

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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this year at CPC.

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