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.
Is proselytizing by Muslims illegal in Jordan? If so, are such laws enforced?
My father used to express his religious Christian views publicly and when he was asked if he was not afraid to be harmed, he said:
” No, I am not that good Christian to be given the honor to be harmed for the sake of Christ.” If your name is Omar, Khalid [ nothing wrong in that though], you visit the church on occasions, do not read your Bible, and care less about your spiritual life and that of others, why on earth should anyone persecute you?
Natasha,
You and I both know that christians in Jordan are treated with respect and in fact a lot of people consider them a privliged minority, like the circassians. So I do not think this is a discriminatory issue with christians in general.
By law missionary activities are illegal. I really dont think there is a back story to this. I have no heard of an out cry from any of my christian friends here about this or that there is discrimination against them along these lines. There have been churches here before there were mosques. There are christian schools run by pastors and nuns and all operate legal with out the mandate of proselytizing.
I would also like to comment on your linking this with the issue of Iraqi refugees in Jordan. I work very closley on the matter and there religion does not play a major part. People if caught are deported because of their illegal residencey status. Furthermore, with the Iraqi community, Jordanian society had no issue with the christians, it was the Shi’a they were “afraid” of. This minority mostly migrated to Syria where they were met more hospitably by the local community there. So I really dont think the two are linked.
I personally dont think there is a back story to this and with someone who has an ear to the ground here I have not heard any grumblings about this despite it being fully published on our front pages.
Bam, thanks for the links and the explanation.
Bam, thanks for the links and the explanation.
@informer
i was quoting the Department of statistics in jordan and the CIA world fact book, the 4% i didn’t find a source for it so i won’t take it (might be legit so if u have the original source please post it). as for the http://www.srginc.org/ its an evangelical site… so no matter how bad the DoS is it will be way too biased to believe it without further questioning the methods and the source of that info. So their numbers increased there is no argument in that i think.
thats why i stick with 6-7% so far.
and thanks for the info that was insightful even tho am inclined to take it with a grain of salt. 😉 so you are saying the churches & the gov’t are working together. the only thing i can’t figure out is what is there to gain for the gov’t other than the support of the Big 3? or you are seeing something that i am not seeing.
@kinzi
really it has been the norm for a long time that christians have less children that muslims. so u can’t just start from 90’s till now. i am saying that based on my background and what was common i need to dig some statistics or reference for it to back it up factually. but the percentage decreased mainly due to that disparity …
Informer, that was very, very interesting. I hadn’t connected the dots like that before on several points and I now have LOTS to ponder.
BamBam…thanks for clarifying number/vs. percentage. Bear with me, tho (I know I am not good with numbers :D)…if the Christian population remained steady in numbers, and yet people were still having 3-5 children until the 90s when the ‘two child’ standard became norm for Christians, shouldn’t the whole population have increased more greatly than just remaining steady?
To set the record straight for those that believe Christians are 6-7% of Jordan’s population, why not peruse some actual research rather than offer supposition (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71424.htm). Those figures have been and remain important.
The Christian community suffered a numerical freefall over the last few decades due to lower birth rates, high rates of emigration, an influx of Muslim refugees and the rise of politicized Islam. From 1970-2000 Jordan’s Christian population dropped by one half — from 5.5 to 2.75% of the population (http://www.srginc.org/jordan.html).
The BBC’s research found that official government figures estimate 4% of the population to be Christian, but according to a US State Department report, government and Christian officials privately estimate the true figure to be closer to 3%. The World Christian Database estimates the Christian population to be 168,000. The World Bank puts the population at 5.4m (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/4499668.stm).
Percentages or raw figures make little difference, the amount of Christians in the kingdom has been shrinking .. that is until recently. And that’s important here. Aside from setting the record straight on this hotly contested figure, why is this of note?
According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, combined, there are about 2.25 million Iraqi refugees between Jordan and Syria. Christians, although composing less than five percent of the Iraqi population, make up 20 percent of the refugee population in Jordan and Syria. Let’s do the math: 20% of 2.25 million equals about 450,000. They aren’t all in Jordan and these are estimates, but this number is more than double the current number of total Christians in Jordan before the influx.
Of equal note: many within the 450,000 are not part of the ‘legitimate’ churches. That points to a shift in power by sheer number. More importantly, this increase is changing the makeup of the kingdom, reversing a slide of Christians out of the country, potentially changing the ranks of the big three. And, worse in the eyes of some, these new ‘illegitimate’ Christians from next door are more likely to be evangelical or proselytizing Christians and/or more open to becoming so.
These ‘illegitimate’ faiths have existed for some time, so why now. This influx and it’s threat to the status quo is the ‘why’ of the government’s actions and the Churches’ backing.
Reviewing a bit of valid research on Christians in the kingdom from Mohanna Haddad, pulled from an article in “The Muslim Word” entitled “Detribalizing and Retribalizing. The Double Role of Churches among Christian Arabs in Jordan: A Study in the Anthropology of Religion.”
This is where the commonalities between the government actors and the Council of Churches come to light. The Council fears the erosion of its power, of its base. The ‘illegitimate’ — Arabi: pejorative — churches always represented a threat but it was relatively small. That has changed with the arrival of Iraqi Christians. The government has had little to fear from the Council’s churches, as the nature of their worship and the complex interrelationship of religions in the kingdom meant ‘conversion’ was not a perceived “threat.” It appears, that some in the government believe that too is changing or could change.
Hence we have two separate parties with two separate fears uniting against a common enemy. The disturbing part is that this is over a faith issue and an instrument of government is involved. The actions of some within these ‘illegitimate’ faiths surely do deserve criticism for their actions. But previously, when churches in the kingdom faced these issues they did not have a partner willing to do what the government is now doing, the dirty work. Historically, they managed to work it out on their own, as they should now. Doing so would turn the spotlight on the naked desires of some within the government to shut down the threat of conversion.
Giving the government cover for what it is doing now is a very risky proposition. Perhaps, as Onzlo suggests, this is all a tempest in a teapot. But the numbers and the history suggest this is not something that should be ignored and certainly not something that anyone, Christian, Muslim or otherwise, should condone.
Onzlo,
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.
Where would they immigrate to? It’s only a matter of time before Jordanian Muslims start getting deported from Christian countries. for the crime of being Jordanian Muslims. Suck it up. It’s all good. Who needs freedom of religion?
You said big and you meant big, you made a mistake so accept it and move on.