Since June, our U.S. news media has been reporting daily about the
armed conflict in Iraq. The ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant),
a militant Sunni armed force, has been sweeping across northern Iraq and large
areas of Syria. Their rapid success has been surprising and alarming.
The stated purpose of ISIL is to restore the caliphate and thus create a
new nation with all-Muslim rule. ISIL members believe that all
non-practicing Muslims are infidels, and worthy of being beheaded or otherwise
killed. For each town or village they capture ISIL immediately imposes the
rules of Shriah Law, including many anti-Christian rules, like ordering Muslim
employers to fire all Christian workers. The homes of Christian religious
leaders are ransacked and occupied by militants. Many Christians, especially
men, are killed outright.
The slaughter is not limited to Christians. Other non-Muslim minority
religious groups such as the Yasidi are subject to the same brutality and ethnic
cleansing.
ISIL regularly orders non-Muslims to convert to Islam or pay a stiff tax
(one source says that 75 grams of gold is required). For their failure to
comply with one or the other of these alternatives, the person would face "death
by the sword." Actually, many of those who pay the stiff tax, nevertheless are
executed, we are told.
In one small city, the Christian population shrank from 3,000 families to
several hundred in weeks, as Christians fled. The deadline set by the militants
for paying the tax, or converting to Islam, has forced people to abandon homes
and businesses, often with little more than a car and some clothing, says a
Catholic priest who lived in the largely Christian city of Mosul.
The Associated Press reports that the entire country of Iraq had more than
one million Christians before 2003, but now church officials estimate that fewer
than half that remain in Iraq --- a result of repeated acts of persecution,
including church bombings by Islamist groups. In Mosul, the most important
Iraqi city for Christians, before 2003 the Christian population numbered
130,000. Until early this June, there were 10,000. Since ISIL took over the
city, only 2,000 Christians remain, estimates the Associated Press.
One of the largest groups of Christian believers are the Chaldean
Christians. Chaldeans are the indigenous people of Iraq who speak a form of
Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus Christ. Chaldeans are Eastern Rite
Catholic, affiliated with the Roman Catholic church, but they maintain their own
separate Bishops and Dioceses. Like many ethnic groups, Chaldeans began
immigrating to America in the 1920's, in search of better economic, religious
and political freedom opportunities. San Diego has the world's second largest
Chaldean population outside Iraq, with an estimated 71,000 people. Today, an
estimated 6 of 10 food stores in San Diego are owned by Chaldeans. Another
200,000 Chaldeans/ Assyrians reside throughout the United States, particularly
in the Chicago, Detroit and Phoenix areas.
As for the origins of the Chaldo-Assyrian people of today, it is thought
that they descended from the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian civilizations, and
the Aramean legacy of Mesopotamia.
A British journalist recently wrote,"This is the final scene in the
grotesque, theatrical death of Iraqi Christianity. A people who once numbered
more than a million, who just a decade ago enjoyed the use of more than 300
blossoming churches, now faces extinction."
However, in towns outside Mosul and closer to Kurdistan, local religious
leaders say the they must resist the urge to leave or risk losing their
centuries-old identity. For Christianity to endure in Iraq, "we must stay until
the end," says Archbishop Basile Caasmoussa of the Syrian Catholic Church in
Mosul. With his exiled flock in the town of Qaraqosh, he laments that Mass is
not now being celebrated in Mosul, for the first time in 1,600 years. He draws
hope, however, in the fact that churches in Qaraqosh are still drawing crowds.
"Our faith is being tested," he says.
The Kurds of northwestern Iraq are not militant Muslims, and were friends
of the U. S. during the effort to remove Saddam Hussein and thereafter. The
Kurds and their well-trained military may be the blessing that threatened
Christians in Iraq will need. This story is far from over.
QUESTION:
The Christian faith is being tested dramatically today in
Iraq. Do you see that the Christian faith in our lives is always
being tested, too? It doesn't have to be the testing of armed militants. But,
some of the testing we receive is just as deadly for the faith. In American
secular society there are both unarmed "militants" and secular trends seeking to
crowd out our Christian faith. Be on your guard!
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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 growth this Fall at
CPC.
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