The refugee crisis is
mind-boggling. According to the United
Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), there are 2.4-million refugees who
have incredible needs in and around Iraq.
“Could this happen to us
in America?” That was the question from
Patrick Klein president of Vision Beyond
Borders (VBB) following his recent trip to Northern Iraq. Klein just returned from visiting refugee
camps in-and-around Dohuk. The stories
he heard were heart-breaking; the testimonies of Christians were amazing; the
needs of refugees, overwhelming. Klein
says he visited Iraqi refugees forced from their homes in Mosul … many of them,
Christians. “Most of them have lost
hope, and they’re just discouraged. They
say: ‘Where do we go? What do we do now?
Maybe if we come to America or Europe,
we can start a new life.’ I don’t want
to see 300,000 Christians leave Iraq [with] no Christian witness left in Iraq.”
Many of the refugees are
college educated, middle class Iraqis who had good jobs and bank accounts to
help support their families. That all
changed when the Islamic State (ISIS) started taking over in June. “There were 52,000 security forces protecting
Mosul and the surrounding area. There
were 3,000 ISIS. They believe Maliki,
the former president of Iraq, told the generals to lay down their arms and
surrender, and they don’t know why.”
When that happened, ISIS
started going from village-to-village forcing Christians to leave. “A lot of [the Christians] had Muslim
neighbors they knew for 30-years. These
Muslim neighbors said, ‘Get out of Iraq. You don’t belong here. We hate you Christians,’” reports Klein. They were forced to either convert to Islam,
leave or die. “One man told us: ‘I think
God is chastising us because we forgot God. We stopped reading our Bibles. We stopped praying. Maybe God is using this.’ He said, ‘I want to tell you, my family and I
are having devotions together every night. We’re praying together. We’re reading the Bible together.’ He said, ‘We realize that all we have is
Jesus.’”
According to Klein, this trip was the hardest trip he’s ever made.
It forced him to ask an important
question. “I thought: ‘Could this happen
to us in America? Could we be forced
with a decision? Are we going to follow
Christ or walk away from everything we own?’
I pray that the church in America would love Him passionately, that we
would not lose our first love.”
The spread of ISIS is
also impacting nominal Muslims who are helping refugees. Klein says, “A lot of people [Muslims] are
saying, ‘If this is what Islam is, we don’t want to be Muslims anymore,’ and
they’re opening up to the Gospel.”
Listen: We all
suffer—it is a part of life since the Fall of humankind in the Garden of
Eden. Some suffer because of their
testimony to their belief in Christ. As
long as Christians are silent, there are few repercussions. A holy life may give away your secret; but if
you are a silent Christian you may be able to escape rejection and hostility,
if that is your goal. If you articulate
that Jesus is Lord, then the likelihood of rejection is increased.
In our Western world,
we think that because we have individual freedom (which is our highest priority
as a culture) any attempt to restrain evil is an infringement on freedom. In our culture of political correctness,
anyone who deviates from mainstream political or moral positions is not well
tolerated. The language of disdain
becomes hostile.
For governments who
insist on total and ultimate loyalty, Christians who can’t say “Caesar is Lord”
are deemed rebellious and insubordinate because they know that their ultimate
loyalty is to Jesus Christ as Lord. So
they lash out at Christians, seeking to silence them through whatever means are
necessary. Dead Christians, these
governments think, are no longer a problem.
In a culture of
convenience, like the USA, the idea of suffering for anything is not part of
our normal expectations. We go to great
lengths to end suffering … especially our own.
To embrace suffering for Christ is almost a foreign idea, but a
necessary step to be God’s true servant in our culture.
My friend: We will
have to choose whether we believe in Jesus as the Lord and we will have to
testify to that; or, we can try to remain safe by being silent and be free from
rejection, suffering, and, in some places, death. This is not to disregard that Christians must
use discretion in when, where, and how they testify. We do not go looking for suffering or
martyrdom; but if the occasion arises and a choice has to be made, we will make
the hard choice. We may experience
beatings, harassment, legal proceedings, or beheadings for our testimony; but
we have already decided that if that is the necessary consequence of loyalty to
Christ, then we accept that.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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