Turkey Puts on Christmas Show to Impress EU

[Bonnie]

http://www.americandaily.com/article/10309
By J. Grant Swank Jr. (11/21/05)

Turkey salivates to get into the European Union. It wants that recognition that it will do practically anything to prove to the rest of the world that Turkey is a totally secularized country and has no biases at all, particularly against other religions than Islam.

However, the Christians in Turkey are particularly suspicious of the latest showcase move on the part of Turk officialdom. What is going on when an actual Christian congregation gets permission to build a church and call it a "church"? How long will the church be recognized as a legitimate "church"? Will the Christians who gather there be done in in some way gross in due time, particularly after the showcase publicity subsides? And what if other congregations of Christians sought government approval for meeting in an actual building known legally as a "church"?

Therefore, when "’Let’s praise the Lord with our voices’" rises to the church ceiling in the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church, how long will such worship enthusiasm be permitted to last? According to The Washington Times’ Nicholas Birch, the gathering is made up of "mostly Muslim converts" to Christianity. There are about 40 in attendance that particular Lord’s day.

It’s an enthusiastic group of Christians who have their musical instruments in hand and their hearts lifted toward heaven. They have their Bibles in close range for study and praise. They have their witness clear and open. But how is it that Turkey, not really a secularized nation but a strong hold-out for Islam, actually says to the media that this evangelical meeting place is going to continue.

After all, it was Turkey that informed the EU of "Islamophobia," that is, that the EU was expected to pass a law stating that if any person said anything negative against Islam that individual would be incarcerated. Of course, that recommendation did not stand with the EU; nevertheless, it was actually put forth by the so-called all-secular state of Turkey.

It took three years for the government to grant official recognition of the worshipers and their meeting place. It has become the "first Protestant church in southeastern Turkey since the founding of the Turkish republic 82 years ago.

"’The decision surprised us all,’ says Jerry Maddix, a missionary from Washington state who has been with the church since 2002. ‘But I think the Turkish government only opened the door to us because it was in its own interests.’"

There is an estimated 3,500 Turkish Protestants throughout the country. Now Turk officials have passed laws on the books that say that there cannot be religious discrimination. Of course, that is to impress the EU. In actuality, it is quite a different scope.

In fact, the new law even states that Christian missionaries may work in the open. Again, time will tell how practical this law will be when missionaries actually seek to spread the gospel message.

"’Nobody can claim that religious ceremonies are obstructed in Turkey,’ Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has boasted.

"But the reality for Turkish converts to Christianity remains more ambiguous, and many of their problems stem from the vaunted secularism that has defined modern Turkey since it was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk."

MUSLIM STATE BUILDING FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN 1,400 YEARS
By Joy Junction (11/21/05)

The first Christian church in Qatar since the arrival of Islam in the 7th century is to be built in the conservative Muslim state.

Qatar is located in the Middle East, on the peninsula bordering the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/qa.html).

According to the Pakistan Christian Post (www.pakistanchristianpost.com/newsdetails.php?newsid=692P), the almost $7 million development of the Church of the Epiphany, which will not have a spire or free-standing cross, will begin in early 2006 on land donated by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (www.qatarembassy.net/emir.asp).

The Most Rev. Clive Handford, 68, the Nicosia-based Anglican Bishop in Cyprus and the Gulf, told the Post, "We are there as guests in a Muslim country and we wish to be sensitive to our hosts . . . but once you're inside the gates it will be quite obvious that you are in a Christian center."

The walkways and grounds of the church, on the outskirts of the capital, Doha, will have crosses and flower motifs resembling those used in early Christian churches.

"We hope that the center can be a base for ongoing Muslim-Christian dialogue," the Post reported Handford said.

Qatar's Anglican community, estimated to number between 7,000 and 10,000 people, has held services in an English-language school in Doha for decades, the Post reported.

The site has been leveled and a quarter of the almost $7 million needed has been raised by the Anglican community in Qatar, with the rest to be met by overseas fund raising.

The church will be run by Ian Young, the Post reported, a 58-year-old Scotsman who has served as Doha's chief Anglican priest since 1991.

Christianity disappeared from most Gulf Arab states within a few centuries of the arrival of Islam in the 7th century. However, the Post reported that Christian expatriates have migrated to the region over the past 100 years, particularly since the discovery of oil.

Some Gulf states have allowed churches to be built, including Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, where Western-friendly governments have sought to provide amenities to attract skilled expatriates.

But in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, non-Muslim religious practice is banned.

Handford told the Post that some Qataris might not be happy. "In the conservative Muslim world you'd expect it," he told the Post. "You'd get the same in the conservative Christian world where mosques are being built."

He added, "We haven't experienced any problems or difficulties with local people. They have been welcoming and felt that this was right."

The congregation will take security precautions, but no "dramatic" measures are planned. "We are pretty confident in the local security," the Post reported Handford said.

Qatar, home to huge gas reserves and enjoying an economic boom, prides itself on its security. With a population of fewer than one million, centered mainly in Doha, it is confident that it can keep an eye on everybody.

An attack in March when an Egyptian engineer detonated a car packed with explosives outside a theater popular with Westerners, killing a British man and injuring 12 other people, was viewed as an aberration, the Post reported. It was Qatar's only known suicide bombing.

"Already Qatar has changed from being a remote, secluded, conservative country to one that's much more open to the world," the Post reported Gerald Butt, the editor of the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey, said.

The Post reported that Handford is a veteran of the Middle East, first visiting in 1956 with the RAF, when he spent time in Jordan and Iraq. Ten years later he was back as a clergyman, with posts in Baghdad, Jerusalem and Beirut.

His beat now extends from Kyrenia in northern Cyprus to Aden in Yemen. His Cyprus and Gulf diocese, unlike those of Iran, Egypt and Jerusalem, is an "entirely expatriate diocese," with no native Anglicans.

http://www.americandaily.com/article/10307