fbpx

CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH



Middle East Christians facing ‘extremist atrocities’


BBC News reports: “The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that there are extreme forces at work that have turned the Arab Spring into a ‘very anxious time’ for Christians.

Dr Rowan Williams told the BBC that the vacuum left by the end of autocratic regimes was being filled by extremists.

He claimed there had been more killings of Christians and burnings of churches in Egypt than people were aware of.

Life was unsustainable for Christians in northern Iraq, and tensions in Syria were nearing breaking point, he added.

The Middle East is the birthplace of Christianity and home to some of the world’s most ancient Christian denominations.

There is no agreed figure for the number of Christians in the region, though some experts believe there are as many as 10 million.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s The World at One, Dr Williams said he was ‘guardedly optimistic’ that the political upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa would bring greater democracy to the region.

‘In the long term, of course, a real participatory democracy in the region is bound to be in the interests of minorities because good democracies look after minorities,’ he said.

But in the short term, he warned, people were using the chaos it had brought to attack Christian minorities.

‘There is no doubt at all that it is a very anxious time for Christian communities. There have been extremist atrocities already, especially in Egypt,’ he said…” (There is a move on in America called ‘Chrislam’ to join Christianity and Islam together as the beginning of the One World Religion, the final prophetical sign before Christ returns. This time has arrived. On June 26th, 2011, Christian churches met in 26 states with Muslims to create the apostate Antichrist movement – Revelation 13:6-18; II Thessalonians 2:3, 4; I John 2:18, 22; II John 1:7-9.)