Rupert Shortt has spent a lot of time thinking and writing about Christians being persecuted. His recent book Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack, may become an important text and I have not yet read it. But an article on 2 January made me think about the context of Christian suffering in the Near East. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2013/jan/02/middle-east-arab-spring-christian-winter)
I think it is mistaken to picture Christians as being the prime victims in much of the growing chaos and violence which can be found from Pakistan to Syria, or even into North Africa. My experience of reporting on the Syriac Christians in northern Mesopotamia, now divided between Iraq, Turkey and Syria, showed that the patterns of violence and oppression are complex. For instance in Mardin province of Turkey, the oppression of non-Sunni Muslims has led to the total disappearance of the Yezidis, an ancient native religious group which still survives in northern Iraq. Patterns of oppression in Syria seem to be against anyone who rejects the vicious puritanism of the Salafists: and this means 'normal' Sunni Muslims as much as Christians, or Shia Muslims. So, while Christians are having a hard time of it across the region, it is not simply because they are Christians: it is because they are part of the old mosaic of religious and ethnic identities which made the Ottoman Empire so interesting.
So I tweeted to @Syrianews (http://newsfromsyria.com/) the little idea: Christianity was designed to be persecuted. It is in its genes.
I am not talking about contemporary Christianity, but I want to think for a while on where Christianity's roots are, as well as Islam's. It is clear to anyone who has to preach from the New Testament with any frequency that an underlying assumption of the Christian Scriptures is that Christians can expect persecution. The writers lived in a time when the tiny Christian community was being attacked by its fellow Jews, and later by the Roman power. Christianity's problem, particularly west where it has been in political power since Constantine in much of Europe, is that it has been forced to exercise authority, with all the coercion of brutal state power while reading texts in the liturgy urging the love of enemies, the turning of the cheek, and endurance under persecution at all costs. Where Christians have been oppressed, such as as slaves, or under Nazism and Soviet rule, the Scriptures fed a spirituality which flourished under persecution. To be a martyr is what Christ expects from those who follow him. As I used to say to my pupils in a comfortable school: you do not attain holiness eating tea at the Savoy.
Islam, meanwhile, seems to have a text and a method of reading it which clearly sees it as existing to rule. The Qur'an and Sunna are well designed to be used as a source of jurisprudence. Whatever the origins of Islam (and on this I have very little knowledge) imperial rule and the Qur'an go together. So for Sunni Muslims living in a society where Islam is not the law poses serious questions. I have a feeling that this is the clash of civilisations which the crazed killers feel most deeply. Their failure to take on board the subtleties of Islamic Law is in some ways a sign of the problem of Islamic rule in a world which does not accept it. Their ignorance of legal decisions against suicide (and therefore suicide bombings) shows what has happened in some places where Islam has been sidelined from being the ruling narrative.
Sunni Islam flourishes where it is in power. The glories of Muslim Empires are glorious because power and Islam go together. It must be remembered that under the different Caliphates non-Muslims flourished: In Spain the Jews and Christians did well under the rule of Islam. The same must be said when the Ottoman Empire flourished.
Christian imperial power led to the expulsion of the Jews, forced conversions, burnings of heretics. Even under the generally inclusive Elizabeth I it was tough being a Catholic. Maybe that is why so much of the Church of England today values inclusion, because although it is in theory the Church of the Realm, it has lost all power and must serve the whole community in order to survive.
I realise there are huge exceptions to the cases I have suggested, but Christianity flourishes when it is not in political power, and Islam is at its most inclusive when it is clearly in power.
