US evangelicals, angering Iraqi Christians, exploit war to plunder flocks

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062202335_pf.html


washingtonpost.com
Evangelicals Building a Base in Iraq
Newcomers Raise Worry Among Traditional Church Leaders

By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005; A01

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The U.S.-led toppling of Saddam Hussein, who limited the establishment of new denominations, has altered the religious landscape of predominantly Muslim Iraq. A newly energized Christian evangelical activism here, supported by Western and other foreign evangelicals, is now challenging the dominance of Iraq's long-established Christian denominations and drawing complaints from Muslim and Christian religious leaders about a threat to the status quo.

The evangelicals' numbers are not large -- perhaps a few thousand -- in the context of Iraq's estimated 800,000 Christians. But they are emerging at a time when the country's traditional churches have lost their privileged Hussein-era status and have experienced massive depletions of their flocks because of decades-long emigration. Now, traditional church leaders see the new evangelical churches filling up, not so much with Muslim converts but with Christians like Tawfik seeking a new kind of worship experience.

"The way the preachers arrived here . . . with soldiers . . . was not a good thing," said Baghdad's Roman Catholic archbishop, Jean Sleiman. "I think they had the intention that they could convert Muslims, though Christians didn't do it here for 2,000 years."

"In the end," Sleiman said, "they are seducing Christians from other churches."


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