Where Have All the Christians Gone?

In early November, the Los Angeles Times featured an article about a 14-year old Israeli boy murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in a bus attack. The article discussed the resultant incursions by Israel's army into the nominal territory of the Palestinian Authority, and talked of damage inflicted by Israeli forces "on the largely Christian city of Bethlehem and its residents." While this statement regarding Bethlehem being a Christian city would have been true 50 years ago when Christians were 90% of the population, it is grossly untrue today when they number only 35%, and are continually dwindling both as a percentage and in absolute numbers. This Christian population reduction is a fact not only for Bethlehem, but for the entire area. Consider, for example, that in the last census conducted by the British mandatory authorities in 1947 there were 28,000 Christians in Jerusalem; the census conducted by Israel in 1967 after the Six-Day War showed just 11,000 Christians remaining in the city. This means that some 17,000 Christians (or 61%) left during the days of Jordanian King Hussein's rule over Jerusalem, and were replaced by Muslim Arabs from Hebron. Pope John Paul II was mindful of these sobering facts when, on the occasion of his visit to Bethlehem in March 2000, he urged Arab Christians to remain in Bethlehem, the home of Christianity, saying, "Do not be afraid to preserve your Christian heritage and Christian presence in Bethlehem." This serious error in not recognizing the decline of Christianity in its ancient home by a staff writer and copy editor of a leading newspaper is symptomatic of a general media neglect of the plight of Christians under Islamic governments, facing the abuses of radical Islamicists. When the invading Arab Islamic armies swept out of the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century and conquered Palestine (which was roughly the area of present-day Israel and the West Bank), the inhabitants were almost entirely Christian and Jewish subjects of the Christian Byzantine Empire. Since that time, except for the relatively brief period of the Crusader kingdoms, the Christian presence has steadily declined. By the beginning of the 20th century, Christians were only 13% of the total population; today they are less than 2% of the 2.8 million Palestinian Authority population and about the same for the 6-million Israeli population. Forecasts for the future envision a total Christian presence of only a fraction of 1% by mid-century, thus abandoning the home of Christianity. The Palestinian Christians are subject to subtle institutional discrimination by the Palestinian Authority, whose official religion is Islam, and whose basic laws reflect the Koranic Shari'a. The militant rhetoric of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, which advocates a unified fundamentalist Islamic state over the entire Mid East, offers no comfort to Arab Christians, who have been fleeing the area at four times the rate of Moslems. There are presently more Palestinian Christians living abroad than in their homeland. The situation to the north in Lebanon shows much the same reduction of Christian population. In 1975, before the 15-year civil war which wrought havoc on the structure of Lebanese society, Christians (primarily Maronites affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church) were nearly 60% of the population. They are now only 25-30% of the roughly 4 million population. Although formerly a clear majority in charge of the country, currently Christians are an embattled minority, fearful of the nation's growing Islamization. Since 1975, more than 600,000 have left for better conditions in Europe, Latin America, and the US; about 150,000 were killed in the war. Christians remaining have seen their influence further marginalized by the 1995 naturalization of some 300,000 Muslims from various Arab countries. Thousands of Syrian workers have been brought in by the 35,000 Syrian troops who actually control the country. The Iranian Hezbollah, dominant in southern Lebanon, is working to establish all of Lebanon as a fundamentalist Islamic state, and had some success in the last elections. The Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Sfeir, quoted in Charles Sennot's excellent series on this subject in the Boston Globe (January 1998), stated: "The Christian church has been here from the dawn of Christianity. But what we see today is very sad for us. We see the Christian majority shrink to a minority. We fear it will shrink even more. The Christians have no confidence, no trust in the future." A Christian college student stated, "...there are too many Muslims. They are rearranging the country. I feel like a stranger here. This is not even Lebanon anymore. They are killing this country." Although the population of modern Turkey is more than 99% Moslem, less than one hundred years ago, under the predecessor Ottoman Empire, it was about 30% Christian. The situation changed when some two million Armenian Christians were massacred between 1905 and 1918, a genocide which the Turkish government still denies. Of the remaining Christians, many fled immediately, while others facing death threats, systemic harassment, and discrimination, emigrated later. The Greco-Turkish war of 1922 resulted in most of the 200,000 Greek Christians leaving the country, with only a small remnant remaining, who continue to complain of government harassment and discrimination. In Egypt, the Coptics, one of the oldest Christian sects, have seen their numbers shrink from 20% of the population in 1975 to less than 10% of today's 60-million population. Over one million have emigrated to the US, Canada, and Europe in that time period. Those who stay face the rising influence of Islamicist fundamentalism, the denouncing of their religion by radical Islamic clerics, the imposition of Koranic Shari'a law, discrimination against their children in schools, church burnings, the loss of political and economic power, and local massacres. Christians are second-class citizens. As one Copt lawyer stated, "Those who can afford to have left the country. For those of us who stay, life is made very difficult. Opportunities are limited. Discrimination is rampant." Sudan is ruled by a 39% Arab minority of a population of 34 million. 70% of the people are Sunni Moslems living in the north, while some 7 million Black Africans of various Christian denominations and animists live in the south. They have been devastated since 1983 by a jihad or holy war led by the government's National Islamic Front against all in Southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains who have resisted the imposition of Shari'a, Islamic law. According to the Institute on Religion and Democracy, this government-sponsored terror has resulted in the deaths of at least two million Christians, moderate Beja Muslims, and animists. Tens of thousands of women and children have been abducted and taken north into slavery, the children to be raised as Muslims. Many of the child slaves are subsequently sold back to their parents. Christians in refugee camps have been denied food and water unless they convert to Islam. The Institute notes that the government bombs civilian hospitals, feeding centers, and refugee camps; churches are favorite targets. The Institute asserts, "It is a deliberate strategy by the government to empty the south of non-Muslims and to keep the oil-rich land for itself." The government is constructing an oil pipeline out of southern Sudan in cooperation with partner companies such as Canada's Talisman Energy and the China National Petroleum Company. The Institute warns that the Moslem government "will soon be able to purchase high-tech weapons of warfare in exchange for oil, and complete its intended decimation of the people in southern Sudan." Over a million south Sudanese, primarily Christians, are living in exile. In Algeria, Islamicist terrorists of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) have been engaged in a civil war since 1992, seeking to establish an Islamic Republic. They have declared their intention to eliminate Jews, Christians, and polytheists, and have targeted Christians in a reign of violence, focusing their killing on Bishops, priests, monks, and nuns. As a consequence, there has been a large exodus of Christians, leaving less than 25,000 in a population of 30 million. In the other North African Islamic states--Libya, Tunisia, Morocco--there has been a negligible Christian presence since the 7th century Islamic conquests, when the Christians, drained by paying the required exorbitant head tax, converted to Islam. There are about 1 million remaining Christians in Iraq, concentrated in the north, out of a 17-million population. More than 1 million Iraqi Christians have emigrated to Europe, Australia, and North America. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, about 500,000 Persian, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians live amid 60 million Muslims in constant fear of mob violence, usually done with government complicity. Syria's 1 million Christians are now about 6% of the 16-million population; over 250,000 Christians, or 20%, have emigrated. Jordan's Christians are about 3% of the 4.5 million population, and emigration and conversion to Islam are steadily reducing their numbers. In Saudi Arabia, Christians are less than 1% of the 21-million population, and the public practice of Christianity is virtually unknown. Any non-Islamic or dissident Islamic religious expression is forbidden. Christian meetings are outlawed except for worship services held in foreign embassies. Offenders are arrested and imprisoned by the mutawa, the religious police. Any Saudi who seeks to leave Islam faces death. Saudi Arabia was recently rebuked by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights for its treatment of Christians. It regularly makes the top of the worst-nation-persecuting-Christians list, followed by Afghanistan, whose recent now-vanquished Taliban rulers until recently held captive 8 foreign workers for practicing Christianity. The Taliban had just this year required non-Moslems to wear special marking on their clothing to distinguish them from Moslems. And their barbaric destruction of the Bamian Buddhas in March of this year demonstrated the utter contempt of Radical Islamicists for the concept of religious tolerance. In Pakistan, human rights groups constantly worry about attacks on Christians, who are only 1.5% of the population. A church in the Punjab Province was recently attacked by radical Islamicists who massacred 16 worshipers. The extremists have hung banners calling on Muslims to kill Christians as part of their religious duty. Similar violence has been visited upon Christians in Indonesia's Moluccan islands, where hundreds of people have died because of atrocities, and thousands have fled for their lives. A radical Muslim movement, Laskar Jihad, aims to eradicate Christianity in the area, and has engaged in forced conversions, church burnings, and massacres. There is no question that Islamicists--those who profess a radical, fundamentalist Islam which becomes more a political ideology than a religion--are intolerant of non-Moslems and seek to eliminate any religious minorities within their borders. And when Islamicists control the government, they put those beliefs and policies into practice with the full force of governmental power. Even those Islamic governments deemed "moderate" betray an essential hostility toward non-Moslems, and Christians regularly report discrimination and harassment. While, so-called moderate Islamic governments may profess religious tolerance in the abstract, their real-world performance is sadly deficient in allowing any significant measure of religious freedom. The really troubling question, given the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in every Islamic country in the past decade, is to what extent the radical Islamicists represent the future course of those heretofore "moderate" Islamic governments. Carl Pearlston

While this statement regarding Bethlehem being a Christian city would have been true 50 years ago when Christians were 90% of the population, it is grossly untrue today when they number only 35%, and are continually dwindling both as a percentage and in absolute numbers. This Christian population reduction is a fact not only for Bethlehem, but for the entire area. Consider, for example, that in the last census conducted by the British mandatory authorities in 1947 there were 28,000 Christians in Jerusalem; the census conducted by Israel in 1967 after the Six-Day War showed just 11,000 Christians remaining in the city. This means that some 17,000 Christians (or 61%) left during the days of Jordanian King Hussein's rule over Jerusalem, and were replaced by Muslim Arabs from Hebron. Pope John Paul II was mindful of these sobering facts when, on the occasion of his visit to Bethlehem in March 2000, he urged Arab Christians to remain in Bethlehem, the home of Christianity, saying, "Do not be afraid to preserve your Christian heritage and Christian presence in Bethlehem."

This serious error in not recognizing the decline of Christianity in its ancient home by a staff writer and copy editor of a leading newspaper is symptomatic of a general media neglect of the plight of Christians under Islamic governments, facing the abuses of radical Islamicists. When the invading Arab Islamic armies swept out of the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century and conquered Palestine (which was roughly the area of present-day Israel and the West Bank), the inhabitants were almost entirely Christian and Jewish subjects of the Christian Byzantine Empire. Since that time, except for the relatively brief period of the Crusader kingdoms, the Christian presence has steadily declined. By the beginning of the 20th century, Christians were only 13% of the total population; today they are less than 2% of the 2.8 million Palestinian Authority population and about the same for the 6-million Israeli population. Forecasts for the future envision a total Christian presence of only a fraction of 1% by mid-century, thus abandoning the home of Christianity.

The Palestinian Christians are subject to subtle institutional discrimination by the Palestinian Authority, whose official religion is Islam, and whose basic laws reflect the Koranic Shari'a. The militant rhetoric of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, which advocates a unified fundamentalist Islamic state over the entire Mid East, offers no comfort to Arab Christians, who have been fleeing the area at four times the rate of Moslems. There are presently more Palestinian Christians living abroad than in their homeland. The situation to the north in Lebanon shows much the same reduction of Christian population. In 1975, before the 15-year civil war which wrought havoc on the structure of Lebanese society, Christians (primarily Maronites affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church) were nearly 60% of the population. They are now only 25-30% of the roughly 4 million population. Although formerly a clear majority in charge of the country, currently Christians are an embattled minority, fearful of the nation's growing Islamization.

Since 1975, more than 600,000 have left for better conditions in Europe, Latin America, and the US; about 150,000 were killed in the war. Christians remaining have seen their influence further marginalized by the 1995 naturalization of some 300,000 Muslims from various Arab countries. Thousands of Syrian workers have been brought in by the 35,000 Syrian troops who actually control the country. The Iranian Hezbollah, dominant in southern Lebanon, is working to establish all of Lebanon as a fundamentalist Islamic state, and had some success in the last elections. The Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Sfeir, quoted in Charles Sennot's excellent series on this subject in the Boston Globe (January 1998), stated: "The Christian church has been here from the dawn of Christianity. But what we see today is very sad for us. We see the Christian majority shrink to a minority. We fear it will shrink even more. The Christians have no confidence, no trust in the future." A Christian college student stated, "...there are too many Muslims. They are rearranging the country. I feel like a stranger here. This is not even Lebanon anymore. They are killing this country."

Although the population of modern Turkey is more than 99% Moslem, less than one hundred years ago, under the predecessor Ottoman Empire, it was about 30% Christian. The situation changed when some two million Armenian Christians were massacred between 1905 and 1918, a genocide which the Turkish government still denies. Of the remaining Christians, many fled immediately, while others facing death threats, systemic harassment, and discrimination, emigrated later. The Greco-Turkish war of 1922 resulted in most of the 200,000 Greek Christians leaving the country, with only a small remnant remaining, who continue to complain of government harassment and discrimination. In Egypt, the Coptics, one of the oldest Christian sects, have seen their numbers shrink from 20% of the population in 1975 to less than 10% of today's 60-million population. Over one million have emigrated to the US, Canada, and Europe in that time period. Those who stay face the rising influence of Islamicist fundamentalism, the denouncing of their religion by radical Islamic clerics, the imposition of Koranic Shari'a law, discrimination against their children in schools, church burnings, the loss of political and economic power, and local massacres.

Christians are second-class citizens. As one Copt lawyer stated, "Those who can afford to have left the country. For those of us who stay, life is made very difficult. Opportunities are limited. Discrimination is rampant."

Sudan is ruled by a 39% Arab minority of a population of 34 million. 70% of the people are Sunni Moslems living in the north, while some 7 million Black Africans of various Christian denominations and animists live in the south. They have been devastated since 1983 by a jihad or holy war led by the government's National Islamic Front against all in Southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains who have resisted the imposition of Shari'a, Islamic law.

According to the Institute on Religion and Democracy, this government-sponsored terror has resulted in the deaths of at least two million Christians, moderate Beja Muslims, and animists. Tens of thousands of women and children have been abducted and taken north into slavery, the children to be raised as Muslims. Many of the child slaves are subsequently sold back to their parents. Christians in refugee camps have been denied food and water unless they convert to Islam. The Institute notes that the government bombs civilian hospitals, feeding centers, and refugee camps; churches are favorite targets. The Institute asserts, "It is a deliberate strategy by the government to empty the south of non-Muslims and to keep the oil-rich land for itself."

The government is constructing an oil pipeline out of southern Sudan in cooperation with partner companies such as Canada's Talisman Energy and the China National Petroleum Company. The Institute warns that the Moslem government "will soon be able to purchase high-tech weapons of warfare in exchange for oil, and complete its intended decimation of the people in southern Sudan." Over a million south Sudanese, primarily Christians, are living in exile. In Algeria, Islamicist terrorists of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) have been engaged in a civil war since 1992, seeking to establish an Islamic Republic. They have declared their intention to eliminate Jews, Christians, and polytheists, and have targeted Christians in a reign of violence, focusing their killing on Bishops, priests, monks, and nuns.

As a consequence, there has been a large exodus of Christians, leaving less than 25,000 in a population of 30 million. In the other North African Islamic states--Libya, Tunisia, Morocco--there has been a negligible Christian presence since the 7th century Islamic conquests, when the Christians, drained by paying the required exorbitant head tax, converted to Islam. There are about 1 million remaining Christians in Iraq, concentrated in the north, out of a 17-million population. More than 1 million Iraqi Christians have emigrated to Europe, Australia, and North America. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, about 500,000 Persian, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians live amid 60 million Muslims in constant fear of mob violence, usually done with government complicity. Syria's 1 million Christians are now about 6% of the 16-million population; over 250,000 Christians, or 20%, have emigrated. Jordan's Christians are about 3% of the 4.5 million population, and emigration and conversion to Islam are steadily reducing their numbers. In Saudi Arabia, Christians are less than 1% of the 21-million population, and the public practice of Christianity is virtually unknown. Any non-Islamic or dissident Islamic religious expression is forbidden. Christian meetings are outlawed except for worship services held in foreign embassies. Offenders are arrested and imprisoned by the mutawa, the religious police. Any Saudi who seeks to leave Islam faces death.

Saudi Arabia was recently rebuked by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights for its treatment of Christians. It regularly makes the top of the worst-nation-persecuting-Christians list, followed by Afghanistan, whose recent now-vanquished Taliban rulers until recently held captive 8 foreign workers for practicing Christianity.

The Taliban had just this year required non-Moslems to wear special marking on their clothing to distinguish them from Moslems. And their barbaric destruction of the Bamian Buddhas in March of this year demonstrated the utter contempt of Radical Islamicists for the concept of religious tolerance.

In Pakistan, human rights groups constantly worry about attacks on Christians, who are only 1.5% of the population. A church in the Punjab Province was recently attacked by radical Islamicists who massacred 16 worshipers. The extremists have hung banners calling on Muslims to kill Christians as part of their religious duty. Similar violence has been visited upon Christians in Indonesia's Moluccan islands, where hundreds of people have died because of atrocities, and thousands have fled for their lives. A radical Muslim movement, Laskar Jihad, aims to eradicate Christianity in the area, and has engaged in forced conversions, church burnings, and massacres.

There is no question that Islamicists--those who profess a radical, fundamentalist Islam which becomes more a political ideology than a religion--are intolerant of non-Moslems and seek to eliminate any religious minorities within their borders. And when Islamicists control the government, they put those beliefs and policies into practice with the full force of governmental power. Even those Islamic governments deemed "moderate" betray an essential hostility toward non-Moslems, and Christians regularly report discrimination and harassment. While, so-called moderate Islamic governments may profess religious tolerance in the abstract, their real-world performance is sadly deficient in allowing any significant measure of religious freedom. The really troubling question, given the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in every Islamic country in the past decade, is to what extent the radical Islamicists represent the future course of those heretofore "moderate" Islamic governments. Carl Pearlston

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.