The Church in Northern Iraq, III--The Problem of "Authority"

So we visited the Kurdzman [Kurdish language] Church of Christ in Erbil/Hawler.

The pastoral staff members spoke to us, one of them through an interpreter:

We go everywhere, to the villages. We tell our wives, "We do not know if we will be back."

The Islamists tear up our literature, spit on us and push us out of town. But we go anyway.

The pastors reported the church had recently baptized 11 new believers: three from Iran, one from Syria--10 Kurds plus one Arab. There are, at this time, 15 groups in Erbil and nine outside; a hundred believers in one city, 10 in another, 20 in another, 30 . . .

The Kurdzman Church is growing. Yet, said the pastoral staff members,

Some missionaries cause us problems. They say, "Don't go to the public [i.e., Kurdzman] church. Go to the house church."

We say, "Okay. If you prefer to be underground, that is okay. To each his own."

The [critical] missionaries speak against the public church because they say we will become a proud people. . . .

The Kurdzman Church sponsored a conference for all the Christians in northern Iraq. They invited the missionaries to come as well. Next thing they knew: there were two competing conference on the same weekend . . . and the sponsors of these competing conferences invited the same people!

"There are a million people in Erbil!" one of the pastors exclaimed. "Why couldn't they schedule their conferences on different weekends?"

With no ill-will, but with obvious concern, he said,

Coming from different backgrounds, the missionaries do not get along. They try to make the church in their own image. They do not trust the church to simple people like us (untrained, no university degrees). [Someone from our group commented: "But look at those whom Jesus called: fishermen! He did not call pharisees to do His work!"]

The Kurdzman church is producing fruit. Where is the fruit from the other churches? We have no dollars. We have no education. But we have a church [and a church building]. Where is their church?

Perhaps I should comment a bit on these last statements.

I noticed, not only in Erbil/Hawler, but in the other cities we visited: the Kurdish believers were far more inclined to permit us to take their photos and speak openly about their faith than were the western "missionaries." To put a Scriptural spin on the language: "This, too, was a mystery to me." And I want to speak as one for whom this is a mystery. I do not live there. I do not face the pressures and risks that those who are present in-country face. Who am I to even hint at possible criticism of any of the players in the drama that is now playing itself out among the Christians in northern Iraq--Kurdish, western, or otherwise?

But I think it is worthy of notice and worthy of our prayers: some believers are far more retiring than others. And it is not always the national believers who need encouragement to "speak up." Sometimes I wondered--and felt (and still feel) the need to pray about--the western believers possibly encouraging the national believers into a state of fear.

Anyway.

With all of the things I've already reported, I was particularly astonished at the prayer requests of the pastoral leaders of the Kurdzman Church:

• Mobile Discipleship materials. "We need a system or course. [Think of all the new believers in Erbil and beyond.] These people need discipleship. Sometimes we invite them here; others, we go to them. So, we need a system or course. We need financial support for translation, printing, distribution and transportation.
• Seminary for Leaders. [This one, particularly, shocked me. Especially after the pastors' observations about how God has blessed the "simple" people! --Are the Kurdish church leaders looking for the very thing that will stifle their growth? Yes. Study the Bible. But establish a formal, western-style seminary? . . . But back to the pastors' comments . . . ]
• More diaconate-style leaders. "Leaders shoudl be ministers of the Word, but we are heavily involved in accounting and administrative responsibilities."
• Christian marriages and families. "Pray for young men and young women to get married and create families so the young women can come. . . ."

Oh. And then there was one last "theme" that struck me while we spoke with the Kurdzman church leaders and after.

Question: Who should have authority to make decisions about the Kurdish-language church in Kurdistan/northern Iraq?

Here, now, there is a growing, established church in Erbil/Hawler and it is led by Kurds. To what extent should missionaries exert influence upon this church? What right do they have to even attempt such influence?

But now move beyond what we might consider "external" influence upon this church. What about the fellowships of believers in other cities? What about the 12 believers who are meeting in the first city we visited many dozens of kilometers away? The Kurdzman Church in Erbil/Hawler has had virtually nothing to do with the creation of this fellowship . . . though many of the participants in City 1's fellowship participated in the Erbil/Hawler church's weekend conference.

So what kind of authority should the Erbil/Hawler church's leaders exert over the church in City 1? And what of churches established in other cities? And what of the "underground"/"house" churches in Erbil/Hawler itself? Who is "in charge"? Who ought to be in charge?

I found these questions rising in my mind several times over. How do you avoid a papal-style "central authority" on the one side without falling into total chaos on the other?

Finally, an interesting story.

A brother and sister are among the leaders of the church in Erbil/Hawler. They are from an Assyrian Church background. They are present in the Kurdish church partially at the encouragement of their father.

Remember, as noted in a previous post, most Assyrian and Chaldean churches are more creatures of ethnic and political realities than they are strong testimonies of Christ among the Kurds (or other nationalities in which the Assyrian and Chaldean Christian communities survive).

So someone once asked the father, "How is it that you have come to love your enemies [the Kurds]?"

"Is that not what Jesus taught?" he replied, without a moment's hesitation.

But the brother and sister--not to mention their father--have had to leave their church in order to reach out to the Kurds.

As I mentioned in my previous post, "Pray that God will raise up more Assyrian and Chaldean Christians who are willing to rise up against the prejudices and fears that currently hold them back from witnessing to their Muslim neighbors."

The Church in Northern Iraq, II--The Problem of "Ownership"

With all the good news I have had to share about the growing Kurdish church in northern Iraq, there are some very difficult realities I feel compelled to discuss as well.

In the city where we met the gathering of 12 believers, the western ambassador for Jesus told me the story about one of the young men present. He (the ambassador) noted that the young man and his brother had caused him much grief over the years. At one point, he (the ambassador) had felt compelled to cut off fellowship with the young men: their behavior was simply inappropriate.

Eventually, both young men had made solid commitments to Jesus and had begun to behave in ways appropriate to those who claim the name of Christ.

And so, at one point, the ambassador made a plea to the young men: "I am concerned that a time will come where someone will offer you a lot of money to devote yourselves fulltime to 'ministry'--working as evangelists or church-planters. I plead with you, brothers: don't accept the offer! Work within your chosen professions. Work as examples to your fellow Muslim-background believers. They need to see men working within the culture, rather than as foreign-paid 'religious workers.' . . ."

As it turned out, the young men were made "an offer they couldn't refuse" just three weeks after the warning. And the offer really was "too good to let go."

And so they are now evangelist/church-planters sponsored by a western mission agency.

My informant is obviously deeply conflicted about the whole situation. And there was pain in his voice.

I report what he said neither to criticize him, nor the agency that has hired these young men, nor the young men. I report, instead, to give you a sense of the kinds of issues the young church in northern Iraq faces.

In no particular order, let me note:

• It is painful for an evangelist/church-planter to go through the kinds of pains that my informant went through with these very young men: to take the risks, hold them accountable, work with them through their rough spots, accompany them to a certain level of maturity . . . and then have them "taken away," as it were, to become the "poster children" of another ministry. --Put another way: it's tough to have someone else "reap," as it were, when you've done all the tough work of planting, watering, cultivating, tending to the young plants. . . . Now, all of a sudden, the "other group" seems to "get the reward." [Once more, please understand: I am not seeking to criticize or hold up for special recognition. I am "merely" attempting to observe . . . so that we, on the sidelines, might pray in behalf of those who experience the deeper hardships.]
  
  My informant said he has to remind himself and pray often according to the pattern St. Paul provides us in Philippians 1:15-18: Whether "some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry [while] others out of goodwill"; whether they "do so in love [or] out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me . . . : what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached."
• The young believers face enormous pressures. And, truly, what is the "right" thing to do when you love Jesus? Do you remain in the job you have and talk about Jesus occasionally? Or do you accept a [generous] offer that will not only improve your standard of living but enable you to talk about Jesus much more freely than you could when you were more dependent on local (potentially offended) sources of income?
• What should mission agencies do--or refuse to do--when it comes to "hiring" or "utilizing" national believers in outreach ministry?
• Strange, isn't it, how quickly and easily we--any of us--can begin to feel a kind of "ownership" over another person? He's "my" disciple, "my" convert, "my" coworker, "my" evangelist. . . .

--On this last point of "ownership," I should note another entire thread of comments I heard, from numerous sources, while present in Iraq. I was admonished many times to refrain from taking pictures of local believers not because of concerns over security and safety (though such concerns were certainly present), but, far more, due to concerns about offense: the use different groups had made of photos they had taken of local believers.

"I'd like to take your picture," said the visitor from America. Harmless enough.

But then a few months later that picture appeared in a mission agency's publication with captions that implied the agency had some significant hand in the presence of that Christian--or that group of Christians-- being there. Or the caption implied, "these are 'our' [spiritual offspring]."

Ownership. A real problem.

The Church in Northern Iraq, I

It is my understanding that fifteen or twenty years ago, there were no known Christians among the Kurds in Iraq (or anywhere else, for that matter). There were churches among them: the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, otherwise known in the West as the "Nestorian" Church or, simply, the "Church of the East." However, you'll get an idea of what this "presence" meant (and means even today) in a moment.

In the first city our group visited, we had the privilege of meeting with a group of about 12 MBBs--Muslim-background believers-in-Christ plus one Yezidi . The group included three or four women and eight or nine men, Farsi-speaking Iranians and Kurdish-speaking Iraqis. I believe one or two members were from the non-Kurdish, Arabic-speaking population as well. In other words, an astonishingly diverse group, all things considered. One of the women, an Iranian, found herself stuck in northern Iraq when she came to faith in Christ and realized she could not return "home."

How did these people come to faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior? Obviously, through different means. But dreams and visions played a significant role for many of them. One man, a member of the Iraqi Army, said he realized God intended something for him (and wanted something--his life!--from him, when he was once hit by three machine gun bullets in an ambush. The bullets knocked him down. And, in falling, he broke his leg. But he survived the assault.

Later, while not yet recovered from his broken leg, an officer a couple of ranks up from him asked to see him.

"Are you [so-and-so]?"

"Yes."

"And you say you survived an assault with a ______ machine gun?"

"Yes, sir."

"That is impossible!"

"Sir. . . . "

"You were wearing a bullet-proof vest, but we have since done tests. We placed a vest in front of a wall and fired bullets at it from the same distance from which you were shot. --The bullets not only penetrated the vest. They went through the wall as well!" [As I will show in another post, all buildings in northern Iraq and eastern Turkey are built of poured concrete and solid concrete blocks. If the bullets went through one of those walls, I can understand why the officer would have no faith that the subject of this story would still be standing in front of him.]*****Our group went to a second city where the agency that sponsored our trip was actually decommissioning a team: a Kurdish church is so well-established, they are sponsoring their own church planting efforts; it is time for the missionaries to do something else.

Our experience in this second city was quite enlightening.

Three years ago, while another group like the one I was with was present, the Kurdish leaders of the church said they wanted to register with the government and build a church building.

You have to understand: there is no way a Western missionary would suggest such behavior. But when the nationals say they want to do something, what are the Westerners supposed to say?

"Go for it!" they said. And prayed wildly that God might grant the Kurdish believers favor with the government.

Completely unexpectedly, but with great joy, the Kurdish church leaders came back to report that they had acquired the license. And now, during our trip, we got to see the building they had erected. Located immediately behind an Chaldean Catholic Church, the Kurdzman [i.e., Kurdish Language: i.e., unmistakably, "Muslim converts"] Church of Christ building can easily hold over 150 worshipers.

Now for the "funny" part.

For many years prior to the erection of the building, Kurds would visit the Chaldean Catholic Church and ask to learn about Christianity.

"Why do you want to know about Christianity?" the priest would ask. "Islam is a fine religion! Stick with Islam. You do not need to know about Christianity!"

There were strong reasons for the priest to discourage inquiry. As noted elsewhere, the minority Christian population, though tolerated, is at risk of severe retribution if the majority Muslim population takes offense at its behavior. --And contributing to the potential "ruin" of a Muslim's faith is clearly the kind of behavior for which the Muslim population could readily take offense.

So the Chaldean Christians sought to keep Muslim inquirers out.

[NOTE: People comment that "the church is already present" in an area. "Why do we need missionaries?" --The experiences I have just summarized ought to provide at least a beginning answer to the questions: "Because many of the churches that are 'already present' in so many parts of the world are more creatures of ethnic and political realities than strong witnesses to the redeeming power of Christ."

One of the Kurdzman Church leaders urged us: "Pray that God will raise up more Assyrian and Chaldean Catholic Christians who are willing to rise up against the prejudices and fears that currently hold them back from witnessing to their Muslim neighbors."]

But now that the Kurdzman church has appeared, the Chaldean priest has been pleased to send Kurdish inquirers to the Kurdzman Church: "Oh! You want to know about Christianity? . . . Go to the Kurdzman Church," he says. "That is the church for you."

And the Kurdish seeker knows the priest is telling the truth. And the Kurdzman church leaders are grateful for the Chaldean Catholic priest who send the inquirers their way. And the Chaldean Catholic priest is grateful for the Kurdzman Church of Christ that takes the potential problems off his hands. . . .