NEWS STORY: Groups Weigh Risks, Morality of Evangelizing in Postwar Iraq

c. 2003 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ As Christian aid workers rush to meet the needs of an Iraqi population devastated by war and years of harsh economic sanctions, mission groups have entered a debate over whether Christian relief organizations should allow volunteers to proselytize there. Evangelical activity in the Middle East, where anti-Western sentiments […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ As Christian aid workers rush to meet the needs of an Iraqi population devastated by war and years of harsh economic sanctions, mission groups have entered a debate over whether Christian relief organizations should allow volunteers to proselytize there.

Evangelical activity in the Middle East, where anti-Western sentiments resulted in the deaths of several Christian aid workers in Lebanon and Yemen last year, has become an emotionally charged topic for both Muslims and Christians.


Some experts warn, however, that Muslim societies are more concerned about creeping Western secularism than Christian proselytizing.

On Wednesday (June 4), the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life brought together leaders of Christian aid groups and Christian and Muslim scholars to discuss the moral and political problems surrounding evangelical projects in Iraq.

The panel addressed questions of how to protect the religious rights of both Iraqis and Christian aid workers, how missionary groups can bring a religious message to Iraqis in a culturally sensitive way, and how Christian missionary activity will affect the Bush administration’s goals in Iraq.

Bruce Wilkinson, senior vice president for the evangelical relief organization World Vision, said the controversy over evangelizing in Muslim countries is felt more acutely in the United States than it is in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, where needy citizens are happy to receive aid.

“Rarely has aid been rejected because of its origin,” he said. World Vision, with more than 18,000 volunteers worldwide, has sent humanitarian workers to Islamic countries throughout North Africa and the Middle East, including volunteers to northern and western Iraq to administer food, water and medical supplies.

“In some Islamic countries, our Christian identity has actually enhanced our work,” Wilkinson said, adding that most Muslim leaders fear Western secularism more than Christian evangelism.

But many in the Middle East, where Christian missions have historically been viewed as an arm of European colonial powers, remain suspicious of Christian proselytizers. Today, Christian evangelical activity in the region is seen as a kind of neocolonialism, said Abdulaziz Sachedina, chairman of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy.


“Ultimately, the U.S. is seen as a Christian power,” he said, noting that the term “occupation” is often used in reference to Christian missions in the Middle East.

Sachedina said many Muslims also take offense that Christians do not accept the Quran as holy scripture or Muhammad as a prophet, while in Islam, Christians are considered “people of the book” and Jesus is regarded as a legitimate prophet.

Incendiary remarks about Islam made by major evangelical leaders like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell further damaged Christians’ reputation in the Middle East, Sachedina said. Last year Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham and head of the aid group Samaritan’s Purse, called Islam a “very evil and wicked religion.”

Graham’s comments were translated into Arabic and Persian and have circulated widely throughout the Arab world, where they have been met with outrage, Sachedina said.

“It gives Christians a very bad image, and that’s not the way to convert people,” he said.

While everyone on the panel disagreed with Graham’s confrontational language, the Rev. Michael Lawrence, associate pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, endorsed Graham’s goal of converting Muslims to Christianity.


“I don’t think he should give up his goal of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ,” he said.

Though Lawrence himself is not involved in missionary work, he applauded the efforts of a Baptist missionary organization that recently sent thousands of boxes of dry food, which also contained a passage from the Gospel of John translated into Arabic, to Iraqi Christian churches.

Last month an evangelical summit in Washington reaffirmed Christian missionaries’ right to proselytize as part of new guidelines to improve communication between the two faiths. Speakers at the forum, sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals, urged Christians to engage in dialogue with Muslims in order to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ but cautioned against making inflammatory remarks about Islam.

Other missionary organizations, however, say their sole purpose is to bring aid to those who need it.

“We draw inspiration from the faith, but we stop short of proselytizing,” said Katherine Moynihan, the deputy regional director for Catholic Relief Services in the Middle East and North Africa. Moynihan, who just returned from Baghdad, said religious messages sometimes get in the way of relief work.

“Right now, it’s about getting aid to people who need it and not complicating things with an agenda that creates suspicion,” she said.


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