Here is a quick update to my last post. Compass Direct, which broke the story about the ongoing deportations of Christians in Jordan, ran a follow-up today that I personally found extremely heart-wrenching. Here is a highlight from the article:
While it was unclear what the government considered false in the report, the fact of deportations of Christians was further verified as authorities on February 10 expelled an Egyptian pastor with the Assemblies of God church in Madaba – one of five evangelical denominations registered with the government.
Married to a Jordanian citizen and the father of two children, Sadeq Abdel Nour was handcuffed and blindfolded and taken to the port city of Aqaba. There he was placed on a ferry to Egypt. The previous week an Egyptian pastor from a Baptist church in Zarqa was arrested, held for three days and also returned to Egypt by ship from the port city of Aqaba. The pastor, 43, is married to a Jordanian woman and the father of three children.
If these pastors were working for legally registered churches why would you deport them in such a humiliating manner? The response of Acting Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh to the initial Compass Direct article was: "The authorities have deported a number of people who entered the country under the pretext of performing voluntary work but were spotted carrying out missionary activities."
Was this really the case in the issue of Sadeq Abdel Nour? I wonder.
Frankly, I find these to be dark times for Christians in Jordan. There are obviously discrepancies between what the Jordanian government is saying and what’s actually happening on the ground. The government needs to be more transparent. Handcuffing, blindfolding and deporting a pastor with no explanation should not happen in Jordan or any country that claims to respect basic human rights. I’m angry and disappointed.
The Council of Churches that issued the statement calling these other churches ‘illegitimate’ is comprised of leaders from the Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Armenian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches; in short Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches. ‘Big’ was being used pejoratively, that is “having a disparaging, derogatory, or belittling effect or force.” Don’t worry, one day you’ll grow up and understand the nuance of language and the science of sarcasm.
Natasha,
I assure you that as a Christian Jordanian I was harrassed and inturegated by the officials for being” active” in my church. They asked me lots of questions about churches, names, church leaders etc. It is not only about foreigners. If it happens once, it will happen to others and twice, three times and then becomes normal and accepted practice. This has to stop.
Even the Armenians are against Evangelicals ! inta habeebti ma fe ilik ordon.
“They have found a safe haven in the kingdom. But many are not a part of the big three Christian faiths here – Armenian, Catholic, Greek Orthodox.”
I started reading your response to this issue, until I saw the statement above. Since when is Armenian a major church in Jordan? lol
Let us speak plainly here, to truly flesh out the problem. Many may have issues with what they perceive as different ways of worshiping within the Christian faith. While differences exist, they shouldn’t be given root enough that they begin to divide and divorce commonalities. Allowing passions to be manipulated could threaten many things.
Let’s examine this issue in the bright light of day. The government has grown concerned with the influx of Iraqi Christians to the kingdom. The refugee situation is a crisis. As a smaller part of that refugee crisis, Iraqi Christians have sought safe haven from real and specific threats at home. They have found a safe haven in the kingdom. But many are not a part of the big three Christian faiths here – Armenian, Catholic, Greek Orthodox.
Why has their presence caused concern? As is well known by most, the big three Christian faiths in Jordan do little to shake the tree of inter-religious relationships; everyone works to get along. The nature of their worship is more structured, more rote if you will – no judgment here, simply truth. The relationship between parishioner and God is less direct than that presented in say, protestant faiths, which proffer a direct connection to the Creator.
These ‘foreign’ faiths, which in some circles are referred to as ‘charismatic’ churches or evangelical but in many cases are simply protestant, have existed in Jordan alongside the big three for many years with little interference from the government and only mild irritation (perhaps?) on the part of the big three. The ‘personal’ path to salvation they present can be very appealing but in smaller numbers it didn’t represent a real threat until arriving Iraqi Christians swelled the ranks. The threat they bring comes in the form of ‘conversion.’
History has shown how more severe ‘conversions’ can work. It has been noted here that past Christian conversions are not a thing to be proud of; few would argue the point. As time has passed, methods moderated. These newer churches present a more appealing path to many, both those within the faith, but more significantly to those outside the faith, in this case those following Islam.
Let us be honest here, the deportations began in earnest because of this.
It is illegal in Jordan to convert from Islam to Christianity. Converts risk deportation and have, in fact, been deported and worse in the past. But the threat of such conversions appears to have been — at least in some minds — much less before than it is today.
Here is the twist: Now that there is real fear of this threat, actions were taken and those taking action needed a way to cover their tracks. They knew such a boldfaced action would face cause considerable backlash. So the big three traditional churches were called upon to legitimize the government’s actions. They were trotted out to call these protestant churches “illegitimate.”
But it seems clear they are being used. The traditional churches may have some issues with the more charismatic churches that are pulling some of their members into these protestant flocks. Many of their issues could be argued as quite legitimate. But they are issues that should be dealt with inside, without government intervention. Who wants the government enforcing how you choose to worship? Combine the issues the big three have had with these new churches with the reality of their ever shifting and shrinking power base and you see a group ripe for exploitation.
Yes, it is clear that the three established churches are being exploited by the government for their own ends – they never made such a claim as they offer now before. One must ask the simple question again: Why now?
The results should be scary for anyone of any faith. Church leaders plucked from their homes and deported in their pajamas on trumped up charges. Muhabbart threatening people, exploiting informants, spreading rumors and working to weed out those deemed to be “proselytizing,” – a key to all of this. If it is every fully unearthed such a term will likely be used to justify the deportations. To ‘proselytize’ is seen as the most direct and overt attempt to bring someone over to your faith.
This is an issue of Muslim conversion.
This is important to note because the big three churches concerns are rooted in something entirely different, a different word: Evangelism, where a member of their church leaves for another Christian faith. Proselytizing is a word and concept that is often used to legitimize a fight against a faith, based up on the cultish ideas and extremism associated with the word. Truth be told, Jesus asked his disciples to proselytize.
But this is just semantics. The facts are simply this: The Armenian, Catholic, and Orthodox churches are being used by the government to legitimize the deportation of Christians and churches seen as threats because of the real or perceived threat of Muslim conversion. The churches apparently bought into this because they’ve been frustrated by the evangelism and saw this as an opportunity to pull a thorn from their side.
But all should be frightfully aware of what a slippery slope this is. Regardless of faith, no one should support the actions of a government that feels it is the arbiter of faith. Issues of faith should be resolved amongst the faithful, of every stripe, through dialogue and understanding.
The path now tread is indeed scary. Sanctimony from any member of the big three, should disappear and be replaced by fear and outrage that someone of common belief is being called out and punished in the manner described, else they may be next. Those outside the faith should feel the same. Check your history books; this type of behavior should scare anyone. Surely a better solution exists. But so long as the truth about WHY this is being done and the reasons the big three churches are supporting it remains unspoken, it is unlikely to stop.
Onzlo,
The issue is more than deporting “foreign missionaries†The issue in my humble opinion is more about targeting non-mainstream local churches in Jordan, i.e protestant/evangelical churches. By targeting I mean, expelling their priests who are actually Arabs and who have been working legally in the country for ages. They are not alien to the country as the existence of protestant churches in Jordan go back to the early 1900’s if not before. I had heard about this even before the Compass article from sources in Jordan. This is new, Onzlo, and it is a an alarming trend, at least to me as a mere Jordanian observer who really cares about my country.
The issue snowballed following the statement by of the Council of Churches – which referred to evangelical churches as “illegitimate” thus creating this tension between Jordanian Christians themselves. If the information in the article above is true then the statement was issued after the Council was approached by officials from the government.
The questions is why? And why now? Everyone co-existed happily to some degree. Why target these churches now? As a Jordanian, I feel I need an explanation.
Natasha: That has a lot to do with this because being away does tend to make things seem alot bigger in one’s mind than they are, your post was written in a way that suggests that Christians i.e. Jordanian citizens who happen to be Christian are being harassed and deported from their country, which is far from the truth and both you and I know it – yes there might be some tensions these days because of the general political situation in the world and the region, but to act like Christians are being persecuted in Jordan of all places is a lie when we all know that Christians are disproportionately highly represented in government, business, arts etc… to make a big fuss out of a small matter will only serve to create resentment.
Thom: affected by all this what? The number of Christians in Jordan does not shrink, it is the proportion of Jordanian Christians in the population that are shrinking because of well documented reasons mentioned by kinzi, believe me if visas where easier to come by then you would have alot more of Jordan’s Muslim population immigrating, also for economic reasons. As for Natasha while it is hardly my position to speculate, im guessing she did not move away due to ‘persecution’ as you seem to be suggesting but because she married an American and went to work abroad, in any case she knows that she is free to return to her country at any time, just like any Christian Jordanian citizen is free to have 298147 babies and to move back to the country.
Kinzi: Thank you and I think I still am a pretty even-keeled guy, but it might be that due to your personal stake in this matter this one touches a raw nerve. I’ll admit that im not too interested in religion be it Muslim, Christian or Buddhist, but to each his own. What I am interested in is the stability of Jordan and its society and in a time when global political discourse has regressed to being addressed in terms of (sometimes thinly veiled) religious ideologies, we in Jordan have so far managed to minimise the divisive effect of this but we are not immune. So when you get foreigners who come to the country with the sole aim of spreading what is in effect an alien religion (I mean it is alien to the majority of Jordanian Christians as well), and when this also in many cases contains political aims which are in total disagreement with the identity of Jordan as an Arab (and dare I admit it, Muslim) state. Then I am against these people, because of their divisive effect and so is every Jordanian Christian that I know, and so should be everyone else who cares about Jordan and its citizens – whatever their religion. In any case if what the government says is right (that will be a first) then these people have breached immigration rules and should be deported – that said I don’t support the use of force or intimidation ever and if it is true that this Egyptian pastor was married to a Jordanian woman then he should bring a case before the courts.
@jareer
hehe you are welcome to do so, atleast in my book 😀 would you extend that to a protestant or a JW or a mormon or a quaker to preach their version to you ?
the line is drawn when there is a door to door evangelism(proselytism)(charity and evangelism(proselytism) need to be separate. you would do them out of your personal belief to help others not for their salvation in the after life from an outsider point of view) and pure evangelism in the sense of stopping random ppl and preaching to them out of the blue.
this an endemic struggle not a pandemic religious one
@kinzi
I relish on nuances, he said number not percentage. the number hasn’t shrunk by any measure. percentage (est) as of 2001 is 6% – 7% it dropped from about 18-19% in the early 1900’s
Bambam, actually, the Christian community has been on a steady decline for years due lower birth rates and high rate of emigration. Between 1970 and 2000, the Christian population dropped by half: from 5.5% to 2.75%
Jareer, that is a good point.
So, let me ask you folks first : What does preaching the gospel [evengalizing] mean?
I can simply preach the gospel more than one way.
First: When I say I am a Christian, and follow our Lord Jesus Christ, this is preaching. When I live a life that matches what I believe and people notice the difference; a life that shows love, compassion and real belief in our Lord and his book, the gospel, then I am preaching [Jesus says: Let your light shine before people so they can see your good deeds, and glorify your Father in heaven] . You can not deny me preaching this way; it is rather a challange for me and for all who call themselves Christians to preach this way. I am sure charities as well follow this principle .
Second: In churches, pastors and leaders are used to asking people after giving a sermon or so to make a decision and to follow a certain aspect of Jesus life: to help the poor, to visit prisoners,to pray for others, to repent, etc. You can deny me this preaching method by simply not showing up at my church, or, if you prefer, bring your police to the door and them check the ID. ID’s have the religion on them in Jordan; how humane and democratic !
Jesus says:” Go you to all of the world, and preach my gospel to every creature !”
If you say you believe in Jesus, so why on earth are you afraid of me telling you more about Him !