I met Bill Gibson as part of the Austin road racing scene in the mid-1980s. I like and respect him a lot. For one thing, he could run faster than me. Smart and highly informed about current events, Bill is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. As such, he recently sent an e-mail to me and everybody else on his list. It bemoaned the harsh policies of the Israelis and commiserated with the poor, virtuous Palestinians. While there may be some truth in that assessment, I did not view the video contained in his e-mail—largely because it was a mass-mailing and thus spam. I have an anti-spam policy.
The American left obsesses about the Israeli–Palestinian conundrum. It’s not that I am unsympathetic, but I have other concerns. Specifically, I mourn the way Christians (and yes, I realize that some Palestinians are Christians) are being slowly squeezed out of the Middle East. I conveyed this opinion to Bill, who may be categorized as an Irish-American Catholic. In fact, he is about as secular as they come. I paraphrase his answer in the following way: “Religious tolerance is a worthy ideal, but I don't know why a Christian would stick it out in those countries.”
What constitutes the Middle East? Most people would say it ranges from Turkey in the north to Egypt in the west to Yemen in the south and to Iran in the east. Needless to say, I am concerned about the mistreatment of Christians (Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, Copts and more) in other countries, such as Pakistan, Libya, Sudan and Nigeria. But centered in Israel and radiating outward, it is called the Holy Land for a reason. As a student of history and a man of faith, I am sometimes pulled in one way or the other. I acknowledge that the means by which the New Testament was written constitutes rather poor historiography, and surely some mythology was woven in but it is just about all we have. Even so, I am convinced that something profound and unique happened there 20 centuries ago with the life, death and resurrection of the man we call Jesus Christ. No other event comes close in terms of significance; it would seem that we are all obliged to take heed.
Christians are embattled in the Middle East by their historical rivals in faith, the Muslims. Not for a moment do I believe that God or one of His angels gave Mohammed any kind of revelation in the Arabian desert during the seventh century. I abjure this creed, Islam, to the extent that it purports to trump Christianity. Almost as soon as Mohammed told his friends and family about this supposedly divine visitation, they grabbed their swords and went looking for people to convert—or else. I do not mean to obfuscate history, but the Muslims are still at it. A religion of peace, indeed!
I find it galling to have a Muslim—Osama bin Ladin was fond of doing this—refer to Christians as "infidels." Some people would say that I stubbornly cling to a mentality that prevailed in the Middle Ages by referring to them in the very same way. I am neither a reactionary nor a simpleton, but this is my firmly held view.
Painful as it is to admit, the Muslims have dominated in the Middle East for the past 1,400 years or so. Christians, Jews and other religious minorities have had no choice but to keep their heads down and hope to avoid the grim implications of their dhimmi status. What is going on currently with a fanatical group called ISIS is downright frightening. Fueled by oil money, it is their stated intent to kill or otherwise push Christians completely out of the region. Christians banished from the Holy Land? This is too awful to contemplate.
There is a genocide going on these days, as a staggering 100,000 Christians are murdered across the Middle East each year. That comes to a person killed every five minutes because of his or her adherence to the one true faith. Many of those who have not been killed have simply fled to Europe, the USA or anywhere they can have a measure of freedom. The ones who remain are second- or third-class citizens, beholden to Muslims for their very lives.
I have a friend who was born and raised in Beirut. A survivor of the Lebanese civil war, she is a bright and well-educated woman who teaches at one of the city's top universities. She and her family adhere to the Christian traditions of Easter, Christmas and Lent, but they see their numbers decreasing inexorably—and along with that, their political power and sense of safety. She has two young children, and what kind of future do they have in the area? The fact that my friend must remain anonymous speaks volumes. She tells me that there is no more frequent topic of discussion among Christians in Beirut than what they are likely to face in the years ahead. A Lebanese man visited the law office at which I work in 2013, and I made sure to get half an hour of his time. He had a cultural identification as a Christian, probably much like that of Bill, my left-leaning friend in Texas. We talked about the country’s rebound from the war and other things before finally coming to the crucial issue.
What, I asked him, is going to happen to our people, the Christians of the Middle East, where the Lord walked, preached and healed? I drew no comfort from what he told me. But surely 2,000 years of Christian history will not end in blood, ash and being sent into exile from their ancient homeland.
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