The violence against Christians in rural Egypt is increasing. Fundamentalists are winning over liberal Muslims. The government doesn't know what they should do. Open Doors is trying to strengthen the Church by providing them with training, practical help and study books so that Christians grow in their faith. 'The Egyptian Church must learn to die every day', says Ammon, the Egyptian director of Open Doors.
What is the greatest challenge for our work in Egypt?
The most important challenge for our work in Egypt is to strengthen the Church in the rural areas. We notice that things are becoming more and more difficult for Christians in villages. The social pressure from Muslims is growing. Muslims seem to an increasing extent to have negative feelings about the existence of local Churches. Their reactions are becoming increasingly aggressive. The Church is definitely not allowed to grow.
We see that the number of violent incidents is rising alarmingly quickly. And sometimes when you hear the reason for the violence ... the reaction is exaggerated, to put it mildly. Recently I heard that Christians were attacked because someone had spread a rumour that a local pastor wanted to start a house Church. And this arose simply because there were two cars from Cairo parked outside his house. The whole village turned out. Cars were set on fire and Christians attacked. Several houses and shops of Christians went up in flames.
Who is behind these attacks?
The leaders of a local mosque. It's absurd. Why do Muslims get so angry when Christians want to build a church? Most of the Churches in the rural areas aren't even involved in evangelism among Muslims. Imagine what the response would be if those Churches did evangelise or if they were taking care of Christians from a Muslim background.
Why do the leaders of the mosque stir up other Muslims in this way?
It's important to remember that these Muslims are blinded by God's adversary. Their rage is inexplicable. On a human level, you see that many Egyptians go to Saudi Arabia to work and there they come into contact with fundamentalist Islam. This Islam doesn't tolerate any other views. When these Egyptians come back, they have a new dream: to make Egypt into a strict Islamic state, much stricter than now. In Egypt there is a much more liberal form of Islam as well, but this is not gaining in popularity in the villages. In the villages, the fundamentalists are constantly winning more ground, with all the consequences this brings for Christians. The fundamentalists are taking over the mosques, teaching the people about the 'correctness of extremist Islam' and if there is a reason, they may resort to violence.
Can liberal Islam and the government not stop them?
The government largely manages to keep the fundamentalism out of the cities, but in the villages, this doesn't work. Egypt is proud of its liberal Islam. There is a university where many academics are trained. They are much more tolerant and teach this too. But in the last twenty years, you have seen that fundamentalists are purposely infiltrating this university. The result is that there are academics from this university who are promoting an extremist form of Islam anyway. The government is not pleased about this. The government really isn't anti-Christian. Persecution in Egypt doesn't come from the government, although here and there Christians are discriminated against under the law. Persecution takes place more at a local level.
Still it happens that police officers discriminate against Christians when they are treated unjustly.
The police is indeed not there to protect Christians. If violence takes place, Christians are often arrested. This is, of course, unjust. At the same time, it is the easiest way for the police to restore order and to bring the Christians to safety. Egypt is a complicated country.
How can we strengthen the Egyptian Church in the rural areas?
Especially through education and social-economic aid. Apart from the fact that the Church has to deal with violence, the pull to the cities is disastrous for local Churches. It is mainly the young men who go to live in the cities. Those left behind are women and old people. This also weakens the Church. This is why an important part of this vision is to help this Church to put out shoots. The most important pillar of this work is training. We do this mainly in three areas:
We teach Church leaders how they should study the Bible. The better they are able to do this, the better equipped they are for their task in the Church.
Besides this, we provide discipleship training for young people before they go to the cities.
In addition, we teach Christians the skills that they need to lead a Church.
Is the social-economic aid also important?
Certainly. We mainly support Christians who do not have an income. We do this by means of vocational training, and providing loans so that they can start up small businesses. Usually they buy cattle. Sometimes we train people for a specific job, such as making locks or repairing mobile phones.
How does micro credit work? Do we lend money and is this later paid back again?
It works somewhat less directly than that. In a nutshell, we help Churches to set up a system of micro credit. We give money which they can use, for example, to help five poor Christians. These Christians gradually pay this back. When the money has been repaid, the Church selects another five people whom it can then help.
Why are vocational courses and micro credit so important for the local Church?
For two reasons:
So that people continue to live in their villages;
So that people can support their Churches financially. For example, with the money they can pay their pastors.
Can you say something about these pastors?
They are people for whom you have to have a lot of respect. Just like us, they are people from the cities, who have been to university and had a good education. They have plenty of opportunities to earn a good salary and to lead a comfortable life and to serve a Church with many members and resources. Still they do not choose to do this. They have a calling to go to the rural areas and they deny themselves and their families many things to serve the Lord in a certain village. Some of them serve a Church with an average attendance of twenty people at a Church service. But we must not look down on these rural Churches. Some are doing very well and have as many as a thousand members. They are bigger and spiritually stronger than Churches in the cities.
Is Scripture distribution also important to strengthen the Church?
Yes. There is a great demand for Bibles. For many Christians, it's impossible to buy a Bible. A complete Bible costs about 35 Egyptian pounds, around four euros. They don't have that money. Still this does not mean that Open Doors is constantly distributing Bibles on a large scale. Occasionally we select some ambitious project and put our backs into it.
For example, the 200,000 children's Bibles and the 200,000 study Bibles a few years ago. Although we distribute Bibles every year, there are also other organisations who are tying to do something about the need for Bibles. For us it is more important to focus on work that others are not doing. For example, publishing theological and apologetic books. Besides this we are working on the translation into Arabic of study books which Church leaders can use to analyse the New Testament. We will invite Church leaders to a seminar and explain how they can use the books.
Why are you so keen about this project?
The pastors I was talking about have had a good education but have little study material in Arabic. This makes explaining the Bible much more difficult. Their teaching will gain a huge boost and the Egyptian Church will in turn benefit from it.
Lessons from the Persecuted Church
We want to learn from the Persecuted Church too. In John 12, it says, 'Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.' What does this text mean to the Egyptian Church?
This text is extremely applicable to the Church in Egypt. Our Church history gives it meaning. In the seventh century, the Muslims invaded Egypt, at that point a Christian country. Some of the Christians died as martyrs. They refused to convert to Islam or to pay protection money. The majority of the then Church gave in to the demands of the Muslims. They had the chance to show Muslims what the Christian faith stood for, but they didn't do so. They bowed their heads. They compromised. They refused to die like a grain of wheat. The Church shrank.
In the nineteenth century, Evangelical movements arose in our country. You saw something changing. The Evangelicals were willing to reach out to local communities and to show love.
What was the effect?
The Church grew. People were born again. If you are a Christian in a hostile environment, it is still difficult to show that Christ died for us all.
The Bible verse says that we must die too. What does this mean?
The dying takes place every day. You relinquish your life as a Christian. It is easy to say, 'There have been Christians in this country for two thousand years. It'll see me out. I'm going to sit back and try to live a life with as little conflict as possible.' Instead of this, you must be visible as the Church. Say, 'Here we are. Come close to us. See how we live. See what we stand for. Get to know our Redeemer.'
The Egyptian Church has also had many 'real' martyrs - people who have died for their faith.
I have much respect for these people. Certainly for those who died because they were not willing to bow down before Islam. But they did not die of their own choice. They were murdered. The price which Christians pay today is much higher. Living day by day as a Christian is more difficult than one day being killed for your faith. One of our Church fathers said that 'the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church'. The true martyrs are the people who every day choose to die, to deny themselves and to show that Christ is alive.
The Bible also says that we must love our neighbours and that we must 'bless those who curse us'.
These principals are difficult to put into practice - certainly in Egypt where Christians are disadvantaged. To hate Muslims is the easy way. To treat them without respect is what our nature tells us. Taking revenge is always the first thought which comes to us. Still this is not what the Lord asks of us. He charges us to love. The Egyptian Church is trying to learn this lesson. We learn to love Muslims despite the fact that they are not like us.
But how can you love if, for example, your house is set on fire?
Muslims pride themselves in their numbers. They take what they want. If you focus on this, it's difficult not to become angry. In Egypt we accept that we are a minority and that we will be disadvantaged. We try to show our love.
What are you letting yourself in for?
You start at home, with the parents. They have to show their children in word and deed how they should deal with aggression and feelings of hatred. Churches also play an important role in this by providing pastoral care and by teaching subjects such as 'forgiveness' and 'demonstrating love'.
And on an individual level? What do you do if someone does something terrible to you?
You make a decision. Every day a neighbour used to let down the tires on my car. I don't know why. At a certain point you become desperate. I really wanted to do something to that man. My wife and I decided it was better to pray and to show our love to the neighbour. Slowly he changed and he stopped his tormenting.
To come back to the houses set on fire, if you want to show love to the attackers after something like that, you need a great deal of grace from God.
This grace will be given to you. That is God's part in the process. But your responsibility is to make the decision.
Many Christians, even in Egypt, think that you do not have to love the extremists. 'That's the theology of weak Christians', they say. But actually you have to be strong to love your enemies and to bless those who curse you.
