ENDANGERED MIDDLE EAST CHRISTIANS
A prophecy against Egypt:
See, the LORD rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear. 2 ‘I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian – brother will fight against brother, neighbour against neighbour, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. 3 The Egyptians will lose heart, and I will bring their plans to nothing; they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead, the mediums and the spiritists. 4 I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them,’ declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. 5 The waters of the river will dry up, and the river bed will be parched and dry. 6 The canals will stink; the streams of Egypt will dwindle and dry up. The reeds and rushes will wither, 7 also the plants along the Nile, at the mouth of the river. Every sown field along the Nile will become parched, will blow away and be no more. 8 The fishermen will groan and lament, all who cast hooks into the Nile; those who throw nets on the water will pine away. 9 Those who work with combed flax will despair, the weavers of fine linen will lose hope. 10 The workers in cloth will be dejected, and all the wage earners will be sick at heart. 11 The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; the wise counsellors of Pharaoh give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, ‘I am one of the wise men, a disciple of the ancient kings’? 12 Where are your wise men now? Let them show you and make known what the LORD Almighty has planned against Egypt. 13 The officials of Zoan have become fools, the leaders of Memphis are deceived; the cornerstones of her peoples have led Egypt astray. 14 The LORD has poured into them a spirit of dizziness; they make Egypt stagger in all that she does, as a drunkard staggers around in his vomit. 15 There is nothing Egypt can do –head or tail, palm branch or reed. 16 In that day the Egyptians will become weaklings. They will shudder with fear at the uplifted hand that the LORD Almighty raises against them. 17 And the land of Judah will bring terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom Judah is mentioned will be terrified, because of what the LORD Almighty is planning against them. 18 In that day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the LORD Almighty. One of them will be called the City of the Sun. 19 In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the LORD at its border. 20 It will be a sign and witness to the LORD Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the LORD because of their oppressors, he will send them a saviour and defender, and he will rescue them. 21 So the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the LORD. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the LORD and keep them. 22 The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.
ISAIAH 19:1-22.
Jesus Christ foretold Christian persecution as one of the end time signs: ‘“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come’ (Mt.24:9-14). What is going on now in Egypt and surrounding countries in the Middle East seems to be a fulfillment of this prophecy. The Muslim Brotherhood outwardly claims that its main agenda is the peaceful establishment of a new military government but inwardly it is to kill whoever opposes to their god Allah. On their way to enforce strict Islamic Sharia law the Muslim Brotherhood has attacked churches and Christian owned businesses throughout Egypt.
“Israel Today”reports Christians in the Middle East as an endangered species in their ancestral land. Egypt’s Christians are being targeted and scapegoated for the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood. An Egyptian human rights activist tweeted that the Virgin Mary in Minya, one of the oldest churches in Egypt, built in the 4th century, was destroyed by fire yesterday. There have also been media reports about attacks on churches in the city of Suez and other villages. Jason Isaacson, Director of Government and International Affairs for the American Jewish Committee condemned these acts: "Organized violence against Egypt's Copts, the murder of innocents and destruction of churches, is outrageous and unforgivable."
As defenseless and abandoned as Mideast Christians seem today, it is worth remembering their historical roots, and recognizing just how much the plight of Middle East Christians has deteriorated. Over 2,000 years ago, Christianity was born as a religion and spread from Jerusalem to other parts of the Levant, including territories in modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. The Christian faith flourished as one of the major religions in the Middle East until the Muslim conquests of the 7th century.
Despite Muslim domination of the region, Christians comprised an estimated 20% of the Middle East population until the early 20th century. Today, however, Christians make up a mere 2-5% of the Middle East and their numbers are fast dwindling. Writing in the Winter 2001 issue of Middle East Quarterly, scholar Daniel Pipes estimated that Middle East Christians would "likely drop to" half of their numbers "by the year 2020" because of declining birth rates, and a pattern of "exclusion and persecution" leading to emigration.
The "Arab Spring" has only worsened conditions for the indigenous Christians of the Middle East. Like the Kurds, Middle East Christians are a stateless minority, struggling to survive in the world's toughest neighborhood. But the Kurds at least have enjoyed partial autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991 and most of them are Sunni Muslim, making it easier for them to survive in the Muslim-dominated Middle East. Christians, on the other hand, are a religious minority that controls no territory and is entirely subject to the whims of their hosts. These host countries – with the exception of Israel – offer a grim future to Middle East Christians.
Home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, Egypt also has the largest Christian population in the Middle East, totaling 8-12 million people. But because Christian Copts make up only about 10-15% of Egypt's estimated 80 million people, they have for decades lived in fear as second-class citizens, subjected to attacks on churches, villages, homes, and shops; mob killings; and the abduction and forced Islamic conversion of Christian women compelled to marry Muslim men. Such abuse took place under the staunchly secular regime of Hosni Mubarak, but grew much worse under the rule of Mohammed Morsi, the jailed Muslim Brotherhood activist who succeeded Mubarak, and they are now being blamed for Morsi's ouster. In Lebanon, Christians represent a bigger portion of the population, so their fate is for now less precarious than that of their Egyptian coreligionists, but their long-term prospects are worrisome. The Christian population is estimated to have dropped from over 50% (according to a 1932 census) to about 40%. Over the last few years, the de facto governing power in Lebanon has become Hezbollah, the radical and heavily-armed Shiite movement sponsored by Iran. With all of the spillover violence and instability produced by the Syrian civil war and Hezbollah's open involvement in it, and/or the next war that Hezbollah decides to start with Israel, the emigration of Christians out of Lebanon will probably only increase in the coming years, leaving those who stay increasingly vulnerable. In Syria, 2.5 million Christians comprised about 10% of the population and enjoyed some protection under the secular and often brutal regimes of the Assad dynasty. But as jihadi groups fighting Assad extend their territorial control, the past protection of Christians is often the cause of their current persecution by resentful Sunnis who revile the Assad regime and seek to impose Sharia law wherever they can. Christians have been regularly targeted and killed by rebels, and the sectarian chaos and violence that will likely prevail in Assad's wake will only increase the number of Christians fleeing Syria. In Iraq, the bloody aftermath of the 2003 invasion demonstrated how dangerous life can become for a Christian minority when a multicultural society in the Middle East explodes into sectarian violence. By 2008, half of the 800,000 Iraqi Christians were estimated to have left, rendering those remaining even more insecure. In 2010, Salafist extremists attacked a Baghdad church during Sunday Mass, killing or wounding nearly the whole congregation. Such incidents turn any communal gathering into a potential massacre, forcing Christians across the Middle East to ask the ultimate question of faith: "Am I prepared to die for Christian worship?"
The so-called "Arab Spring" threatens to exacerbate matters in much of the Middle East, as Islamists now either control the government or influence it enough to persecute Christians with impunity. As new Islamist regimes in the Middle East condone religious intolerance and introduce Sharia and blasphemy laws, the long-term trend for Christians in their ancestral lands will only grow bleaker.
The one bright spot is the state of Israel – "the only place in the Middle East [where] Christians are really safe," according to the Vicar of St George's Church in Baghdad, Canon Andrew White. Home to Christianity's holiest sites and to a colorful array of Christian denominations, Israel has the only growing Christian community in the Middle East.
Because Israel is the only non-Muslim state in all of the Middle East and North Africa, it represents a small victory for religious minorities in the region, and serves as the last protector of freedom and security for Jews, Christians, Bahai, Druze, and others. Without Israel, how much more vulnerable would Christians in the Middle East become? (‘israel today’ article on 15th Aug.’13)
On 3rd July ’13, President Mohamed Morsi was removed after large-scale public protests in Egypt for and against Morsi. Then Al-Sisi declared the Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt, ‘Adly Mansour’ as the interim president of Egypt. Morsi was put under house arrest and several Muslim Brotherhood leaders were arrested. The announcement was followed by demonstrations and clashes between supporters and opponents of the move throughout Egypt. Thursday 15th Aug. turned out to be the bloodiest day in Egypt since its Arab Spring and more than 600 people were killed and almost 4,000 injured. On 22nd Aug. Egyptian ex-President Hosni Mubarak was released from prison and set to be placed under house arrest. Now the Egyptian military’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood supporters of the deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi has caused the largest and most influential Arab state, Egypt to plunge into its worst state of instability. In addition to oppression and plague (which are usually divine affliction), one of the most regrettable incidents humanly speaking, is the destruction and loss of individual nation’s historical heritages. As was seen in Iraq and other countries, looters took advantage of the political turmoil, and the latest robbery of the Malawi Museum, 300 km from Cairo, has suffered the biggest damage in the Egyptians’ living memory. There were reported to be no police or troops nearby to prevent thieves from helping themselves.
The following article reveals how the illegitimately established Morsi’s government survived for a short time only and how Egypt may return to the Mubarak-era again after the wobble between a return to Mubarak-regimed autocracy and civil war: ‘The clashes increased the strain on Egypt’s interim government, with liberal Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei resigning Wednesday evening in protest against the military crackdown. "It has become difficult for me to continue bearing responsibility for decisions that I do not agree with and whose consequences I fear. I cannot bear the responsibility for one drop of blood," ElBaradei said in his resignation letter to the country’s interim president. Other liberal members of the interim government did not follow ElBaradei’s lead, but his departure from the administration cast doubt over the prospects of the armed forces being able to form an inclusive and efficient government. The military seem determined to continue their hard-fisted treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim vowed to restore Mubarak-era security to the country. "I promise that as soon as conditions stabilize and the Egyptian street stabilizes, as soon as possible, security will be restored to this nation as if it was before January 25, and more," he said in a reference to January 25, 2011, the day when the huge demonstrations began that led to Mubarak’s downfall. Since the 2011 revolution, Egypt’s security and already-weak economy have been gradually deteriorating as the country descends into intensified power struggles and weak governance. Under the rule of Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood remained illegal, due to its past alleged involvement in political assassinations. The military’s apparent wish to return to Mubarak-style rule indicates that the generals have failed to appreciate the changes in Egyptian society that have occurred since the ousting of the long-time leader in 2011, journalist and author Hugh Miles told RT. “Islamism has become extremely popular, and what we’re really seeing now in Egypt is a clash between people who want Islam as their frame of reference, against people who want a more secular kind of European-style frame of reference,” Miles told RT. “And that’s a very fundamental divide. It divides families and it divides Egypt. Probably, roughly half-and-half is the best guess.”’ (http://rt.com/news/egypt-bloodshed-condemnation-future-519/ 16th Aug. 2013).
Isaiah’s unfulfilled prophecy about Egypt quoted at the beginning implies the disruption within, and the overthrown dynasty through internal strife, which have already been occurring: ‘Egyptian against Egyptian – brother will fight against brother, neighbour against neighbour, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. The Egyptians will lose heart…’ because of the Lord’s cause. Then they will be handed over to ‘the power of a cruel master’. It is not clear who will be such a dictator for Egyptians but the prophecy is clear what its purpose is: ‘When they cry out to the LORD because of their oppressors, he will send them a saviour and defender, and he will rescue them. So the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the LORD… The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.’ Here Isaiah foresees the fact that the world power never acknowledges the true God until she arrogantly pursues her own destinies, yet, nevertheless the Lord will be there in the end to bring about the conversion of the world and to heal the nations. Thus, Egypt might be depicted as a type of the end time salvation for all other nations.
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