Iraqi Christians Don't Want American Evangelicals

[Kire]

The leader of Iraq's Christians tells American evangelicals to mind their own business.

The head of Iraq’s largest Christian community, Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, recently scathingly attacked the evangelical Christians who have taken their crusade to Iraq....Iraq’s Christians have been in existence for almost 10 times longer than the United States. The country is well aware of Christianity....

Christian evangelists who travel to Iraq to save the savages are merely taking a cue from their masters in Washington. They are so ignorant that they think Iraqis have never heard of Christ and must be taught to see the light.

More: http://thegreenknight.blogspot.com/2005/05/iraqi-christians-dont-want-american.html

[RevCheesehead]

1. I think all those "missionary efforts" of the late 19th century

were doing the same kind of thing. "Christian Triumphalism" is what we called it in American Christianity (seminary course). Headed up by the evangelicals of the Baptist and Methodist Churches, they often went in rather brave, and retreated with their tails between their legs.

Give me the Jesuits anyday. (reference: "The Mission" with Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro) You make converts by befriending a culture, not transforming it.

[Kire]

3. Solidarity, not Charity

'The Mission' is one of the best movies ever.

DeNiro's best performance.

[RevCheesehead]

4. careful now!

Remember the real meaning of "charity" is LOVE. (that's why I get so mad when people tell me "I don't believe in charity.)

I agree. The Mission tells all. (and Jeremy Irons: :loveya:)

[Kire]

7. wouldn't want to go above my station, now

you might get mad

[Kire]

2. "Enough is Enough" says Patriarch Emmanuel Delly

According to Delly, the evangelicals attract poor youths with displays of money and then "take them out in cars to have fun. Then, they take photos and send them here, to Germany, to the United States and say ‘look how many Muslims have become Christian.’"

More: http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11955&s2=23

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. In other words, at most, they're getting "rice Christians"

That's a term coined by nineteenth-century missionaries in India and China who initially limited their charitable efforts only to people who had already converted. They were immediately besieged by a crowds of instant "converts" who would get baptized just to qualify for the food allotments or whatever the missionaries were giving away.

The mainstream denominations learned early on that they had to distribute their charity without regard to the recipient's religious beliefs.

By the way, this isn't the first time that ignorant conservative Christians have gone in and offended indigenous Christians.

After the Soviet Union broke up, there were all kinds of fundamentalists ready to "bring Russians to Christ." The Russian Orthodox church, which was celebrating its 1,000th anniversary around that time, and which had survived some 70 years of suppression, was not amused.

[RevCheesehead]

6. The Russians actually blocked the evangelicals.

Ironically, the Methodist Church in Russia has been growing steadily during the same time. A few years ago, they opened their first seminary there, too! :)

Charity, like love, must be made available to all, with no cost. :)