For years, “Maria” (we’re using a pseudonym, given the political situation) thought little about her apparel or how to greet her colleagues. A Christian and longtime Syrian government employee, she kept her head uncovered and wore Western business-casual attire. She greeted her coworkers with “sabah al-khayr,” which means “good morning” in Arabic.
But an alliance of rebel forces, some connected to jihadist groups, has now seized government power. The new leaders in Damascus repeatedly say Christians, some of whom had allied with the Assad regime, face neither persecution nor displacement. Yet small aspects of Maria’s work life have already begun to change.
Recently, a new boss for her department informed the office that coworkers would now greet each other with “salamu alaykum,” Arabic for “peace be upon you.” That’s the standard greeting between religious Muslims. Maria wonders if changes might be gradual, that next week, or next month, or next year, she will be required to wear a hijab.
Maybe the new greeting requirement is a good sign…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on January 9, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.
One Friday evening, a young woman sat her toddler on her lap at Christ the King Evangelical Episcopal Church in Ma’alot-Tarshiha, a mixed Arab-Jewish town in northern Israel five miles from the border with Lebanon. Like mothers everywhere, she clapped her hands and beckoned a response.
What does the cow say? “Moo,” the child replied.
What does the dog say? “Woof” came the answer.
What does the bomb say? “Boom,” and they both laughed.
Only a few hours earlier, with Hezbollah rockets flying overhead, intercepted sometimes by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, church elders had debated meeting at all. When the siren sounded during the service, members wondered if they should enter the concrete basement shelter.
The playful mimicry belies the seriousness of the less-reported conflict in the Galilee region, but it also reveals its everyday normalcy.
“By now the bombs have faded into the background,” said Talita Jiryis, the 28-year-old volunteer youth leader at Christ the King. “Dark humor is our mechanism to cope with fear and the uncertainty of tomorrow.”
That is, for the northern citizens who remain near the border. But a different uncertainty pains the tens of thousands evacuated from their homes. Arab Israeli Christians offered different assessments to CT, but all pray for peace in the land of their citizenship. The war in Gaza affects them too.
On October 8, one day after Hamas crossed the border into southern Israel and killed 1,200 Israelis, Hezbollah—the Shiite Muslim militia similarly aligned with Iran—launched its “support front” from Lebanon.
Daily exchange of rocket strikes and retaliatory fire has continued since.
But compared to Gaza, the casualties have been far fewer. In Lebanon, more than 450 people have been killed, mostly Hezbollah and other militant fighters but including over 80 civilians. In Israel, at least 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed.
Within weeks, Israel ordered 42 northern communities neighboring Lebanon to evacuate, displacing between 60,000 and 80,000 residents with financial compensation provided. An additional 90,000 Lebanese have also fled the fighting, generally restricted to a stretch of land a few miles on either side of the border.
The violence has steadily escalated and expanded, though both Israel and Hezbollah have appeared reticent to engage in an all-out war. Ma’alot-Tarshiha was not ordered to evacuate; neither was nearby Rameh, where Jiryis was born and raised.
Mentioned in Joshua 19:29 as a border town of the tribe of Asher, Rameh lies a mere eight miles from the border. Yet the historically Christian village, populated also by Muslims and Islam’s heterodox Druze community, sits on a hill facing away from Lebanon. During the last outright conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, rockets struck only the peak or the valley below.
But it is not the relative safety that keeps Arab residents from evacuating. Jiryis said that many in Rameh are originally from nearby Iqrit, where in the 1948 Israeli war of independence, villagers were forced by Jewish soldiers to vacate. A promise they could return within two weeks was not honored; neither was the 1951 Israeli Supreme Court ruling on their behalf. The following Christmas, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) demolished each home.
Seventy-three years and one day later, a Hezbollah rocket struck Iqrit’s Greek Catholic church compound, the only building left standing. The rocket injured the 80-year-old caretaker, and nine IDF soldiers were wounded in subsequent fire as they sought to evacuate him.
Aware of the widespread grievance, Israeli authorities have issued only recommendations—not orders—for Arab communities to evacuate, Jiryis said. In the Christian village of Fassuta, women and children left while the men stayed behind, fearful that history might repeat itself.
Christ the King church, however, represents modern cooperation: Its land was donated three years ago by the Israeli government, and its bomb shelter is open to the public. Services are on the Israeli weekend in advance of the Sabbath, as many from the village work in the Jewish sector. Samaritan’s Purse, she added, helped the poor with a $130 food coupon, a first-aid kit, and battery-charged lamps.
“Jesus is the light of the world,” leaders stated during the distribution.
The church’s average attendance is about 80 people, including a dozen youth, mostly teens. Jiryis’s father is the pastor, and she extended his regional Maranatha family conference ministry with an interdenominational youth gathering planned for April. About 70 signed up from northern Brethren and Nazarene congregations, only for all to be thrown into disarray by Iran’s unprecedented missile barrage against Israel a few days prior to the event.
They held the conference anyway.
“We had to fully activate our faith,” she said. “Christians quote, ‘I will fear no evil.’ But this time, we couldn’t afford to pretend.”
Yet many are mentally exhausted, Jiryis said, and bury their fears rather than turn to God. During the week, she lives in the port city of Haifa, 25 miles southwest of her village, where she works as a psychologist in a government hospital. She has applied her skills through arts and crafts for the village children and insisted the adults continue to meet for mutual fellowship. Breathing exercises and emotional awareness are essential, Jiryis tells them.
Yet as she looks at the war, she is angry at injustice from both sides.
Jiryis knows the history at the heart of Jewish fear. Her mother is German; her great-grandfather was forced to fight in World War II. There are no winners in war, only losers was the mantra instilled in his son. This grandfather passed away when she was seven years old, but the sentiment has filtered into her identity today.
Her paternal grandfather was Palestinian, but like many young people of her generation, Jiryis said she struggles with how to define herself. Although she calls herself a Christian Arab citizen, she doesn’t feel fully Israeli because she is not Jewish, nor does she serve in the IDF. With many Arab and Jewish friends, as a rule she avoids politics and says instead, “Call me Switzerland”—a neutral nation where her father did biblical studies. Yet as an evangelical, she is a minority of a minority of a minority.
Her internal conflict is tangible, but she finds a solution.
“I focus on my heavenly identity,” Jiryis said. “But it is difficult here because you have to belong to something.”
She sees the surrender to community narratives even in the body of Christ. Some Messianic Jews admit they will not pray for the “future terrorists”—Palestinian children—who are dying in Gaza. Some Palestinian evangelicals say they cannot pray for a government committing “genocide.” While tension was always under the surface, relationships everywhere are getting worse.
But some, even apart from Jesus, are still praying together.
A Land of Life
Jiryis’s church is an example of believers praying together, having held joint meetings with Messianic Jews. But the identity issues she described are not uncommon in her community.
A 2015 survey of local evangelical leaders conducted by Nazareth Evangelical College (NEC) found that…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today on June 25, 2024. Please click here to read the full text.
Last month, mob violence took the life of Lazar Masih of Pakistan. Hundreds of Muslims responded with brutality to accusations that the 74-year-old Christian had desecrated a Quran—even before he could be tried under the nation’s blasphemy law.
A year earlier, in a similar blasphemy accusation, thousands of rioters burned hundreds of 400 homes and 26 churches, sending Christian villagers fleeing for safety. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has consistently condemned this hostile climate as unjust, including in a special update issued last December.
“The brutal killing of Lazar Masih is an alarming reminder of the dangers of merely being suspected or accused of blasphemy in Pakistan,” stated USCIRF chair Stephen Schneck. “The country’s draconian blasphemy law signals to society that alleged blasphemers deserve severe punishment, which emboldens private individuals and groups to take matters into their own hands. Pakistani authorities must hold those responsible for his death accountable.”
Accountability is rare.
In 2011, Pakistan executed the assassin of Salman Taseer, a former governor outspoken in his criticism of such laws. But from 1994 to 2023, 95 individuals were killed in blasphemy-related extrajudicial attacks, according to data compiled by the Lahore-based Centre for Social Justice (CSJ). Stretching back to 1987, at least 2,449 people have faced legal accusations.
USCIRF has recommended Pakistan be classified as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) since 2002 for its violations of religious freedom. Created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), the independent bipartisan watchdog lobbies US policy to press reform on egregious offenders.
In January, Rashad Hussein, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, commemorated the 25th anniversary of IRFA by honoring CSJ executive director Peter Jacob as one of nine award recipients for his dedication to the cause.
In particular, he praised CSJ for compiling Pakistan’s only comprehensive database of blasphemy-related arrests, prosecutions, and killings. Last year, 329 suffered under the law, and 7 people were killed before ever reaching the court.
But of the accused, only 11 were Christians. High-profile cases such as Masih’s tend to reach Western and persecution-monitoring media, overlooking the 247 Muslims who were overwhelmingly targeted in a nation that is 97 percent Muslim.
Christians still suffer disproportionately, but Jacob works in defense of all. Since CSJ has started tracking data, 52 percent of accusations have been lodged against Muslims, 32 percent against Ahmadis (a heterodox Islamic offshoot founded by a messiah-like figure), 12 percent against Christians, 2 percent against Hindus, and 2 percent are of unconfirmed identity. Nearly 600 people are currently detained in prison.
With such data, Jacob lobbies the government. In advance of last February’s elections, he won concrete pledges to address minority rights issues in the platforms of three major political parties, who went on to win over half of Pakistan’s legislative seats.
Obtaining reform is more difficult.
Last year, parliament voted to increase the punishment for blasphemy offenses from three to ten years’ imprisonment. It also added language to forbid insults against the companions of Muhammad, which can implicitly target minority Shiites.
The US State Department has adopted USCIRF’s CPC recommendation since 2018. Open Doors ranks Pakistan No. 7 on its World Watch List of countries where it is hardest to be a Christian.
Jacob founded CSJ in 2014 and has spent 35 years in human rights work. He obtained a master of laws degree from Notre Dame University and served 18 years as executive director of the National Commission for Peace and Justice, established by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference on Pakistan.
CT asked Jacob about hate speech protections for Christians, why Muslims accuse each other of blasphemy, and how faith sustains him in an uphill battle:
Why are Christians disproportionally accused of blasphemy?
Christians take pride in the fact that their leadership supported the creation of Pakistan, and remain politically and socially active in the country while contributing to its welfare and defense.
But this sentiment is in a direct clash with the monolithic view of Pakistan championed by sectarian parties and extremist groups. Persecuting minorities became politically advantageous in the pursuit of religious nationalism, and as Christians resisted the human rights violations against them, their victimization only increased in scope.
Today, it is the Shiite Muslim sect that is predominantly persecuted. But as blasphemy laws were introduced by the military government in the early 1980s, and especially since 1992 when they were fully activated, Christians have been among the foremost victims.
Are the accusations based on fact?
Given the harsh punishments in the law and an environment of hostile social behavior, it is safe to say that blasphemy, in the real sense, is almost nonexistent. The entire range of cases is either totally or partially fabricated.
Experts widely believe…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on June 20, 2024. Please click here to read the full text.
Two weeks ago, two Christian women sheltering at the Catholic church in Gaza received phone calls from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The soldiers told them—and by extension the rest of their Christian community—to flee their places of shelter within five days. They must go south, like the rest of Gaza’s civilian population.
Today is Day 15, and a four-day temporary cease-fire has now been extended.
An IDF official told CT there was no specific directive given to Gazan Christians. Those who remain will not be targeted, but their safety cannot be guaranteed.
But despite the calm of the last six days, most are choosing to remain in the two largest churches that shelter Gaza’s roughly 1,000 Christians. Some believers briefly returned to their homes to gather supplies and warmer clothes, according to CT sources. Several found their homes destroyed.
Both Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church and Holy Family Catholic Church are located in the north end of the strip, in its capital of Gaza City.
Under original terms of the truce, 50 Israeli hostages will be traded for 150 Palestinian prisoners. Israel stated a one-day extension is possible for every additional 10 hostages released—but that it will continue its military pursuit of Hamas once the truce expires.
Despite the danger—in fact, because of it—one Christian leader in regular contact with Christians in Gaza wants them to stay put.
“The body of Christ all over the world should work hard on maintaining, providing for, protecting, and helping the Christians inside the Gaza Strip,” Nashat Falamon, director of the Palestinian Bible Society, told CT prior to the truce. “I don’t think they should be encouraged to leave, because leaving is extremely scary and dangerous. There are no guarantees they will make it. Their protection should be our top priority.”
For Gaza’s Christian community, fleeing south had been a near-impossible demand. War is raging, fuel is scarce, and transportation networks are disabled. Sources said about 75 people have managed to evacuate on foreign passports, including the wife, children, and parents of the former pastor of Gaza Baptist Church. Others have relocated to functioning hospitals, while about 20 have died—either from an October 19 airstrike or from disease and illness.
“Our hearts are broken, and we are full of fear and sadness,” said a Palestinian Christian mother of two whose testimony was circulated by a US-based Gaza ministry. “We are peaceful Christians and reject violence from both sides. Love, as Christ taught us, is the most effective weapon for peace.”
The woman, who requested anonymity in order to protect her family, lost her best friend, cousins, nieces, and nephews when an Israeli missile struck near Saint Porphyrius. She bemoaned the psychological state of her children, impacted especially by the lack of sufficient food. Sources said much of the reserve stock was damaged in the blast.
“We see death everywhere. We smell death everywhere,” she said. “[But] in the midst of sadness, pain, and heartbreak, we look at the face of Jesus Christ.”
The Palestinian Bible Society has been able to…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on November 29, 2023. I contributed additional reporting, and please click here to read the full text.
Jayson Casper 