PERSECUTION: IRAQI CHRISTIANS FIND A NEW HILL ...

... to climb and it's not one they want to die on! Coalition forces are responsible for bringing a big cross to bear on those Iraqis who follow Christ in Iraq.

Christians have had a hard time in the new Iraq. As a small minority - about 2% of Iraq's 26-million - they are sometimes lost in the discussions of Iraqi sectarian divides. They often categorise themselves religiously as either Assyrians or Chaldeans, Eastern Orthodox or Catholic, though the passing of time has faded some of the original divides.

This is tough on believers. Not only are they in a persecuted minority, but they have a problem finding identity with an international family. I am not always happy with my Baptist brethren, especially leadership, but I would not switch identities for anything. I am a baptist and proud of it.

Since 2003, however, the differences between them and the Arab Muslim majority have grown. Ironically, said one man in Hamdaniya, before the US invasion, there was peaceful cohabitation between Christians and Muslims. Now many Muslims have left his town, and Christians are wary of wandering beyond their area.

Heartbreaking is hardly sufficient for how I feel when I read this; my heart weeps for these people who are now apparently shunned by their Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia countrymen.

I've frequently wondered at why the USA and the Coalition forces can't do something to alleviate this awful predicament, but it doesn't take long before the word Crusade and its history comes to mind. Ouch! We can't if we want to do the job we've chosen for ourselves in the Middle East. The paradox of being a Christian supporting a secular cause.

In Mosul, a city that thrived with different communities of Arabs and Kurds, Christians and Muslims, the fabric that held them together is being torn apart by the violence. Christians and Kurds are not only being targeted, like some Arabs and Muslims, for collaborating with foreigners: they are also targeted as minorities. Since 2003, thousands of families have left the Mosul area in search of a safer life. Many have left the country, and according to some estimates, those living outside the country make up two-thirds of the entire Iraqi Christian population. Others with less means have headed to the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

Those of us who've supported the war in Iraq have a responsibility to pray for our brothers and sisters, that God will have mercy on them and provide them an outcome similar to Job's.

Won't you pray now!


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HT: Christian Headlines

Christianity, GWOT, Iraq, Iraq War, Iraqi Christians, Islam, Muslims, Religion