"Spiritual Warfare" looms

By DOUG SAUNDERS From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

Washington is trying to portray its battle as one of liberation, not conquest, but Iraq is about to be invaded by thousands of U.S. evangelical missionaries who say they are bent on a "spiritual warfare" campaign to convert the country's Muslims to Christianity.

Among the largest aid groups preparing to provide humanitarian assistance to Iraqis ravaged by the war are a number of Christian charities based in the southern United States that make no secret of their desire to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and win over Muslim souls.

The largest of these is the Southern Baptist Convention, an ardent supporter of the war as an opportunity to bring Christianity to the Middle East. It says it has 25,000 trained evangelists ready to enter Iraq.

"That would [mean] a heart change would go on in that part of the world," Mark Liederbach of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary explained in a recent speech to the SBC. "That's what we need to be praying for. That's how a Christian wages spiritual warfare."

Such words have caused deep alarm among military and diplomatic authorities. Although Christian aid organizations have worked comfortably alongside secular groups in other conflicts, Muslims around the world are already suspicious of U.S. motives in Iraq, and the worry is that missionaries could reinforce the widespread popular belief that the war is really a "clash of civilizations" between Christians and Muslims.

Muslim groups say they believe the presence of evangelists is a sign that President George W. Bush is trying to impose his own evangelical Christianity on Muslims. It does not help that Mr. Bush became a born-again Christian in the 1980s with the assistance of Billy Graham, the founder of the SBC.

"This is creating a real serious problem of perception: Here we have an army invading Iraq, followed by a bunch of people who want to convert everyone to Christianity," said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on Islamic-American Relations. "How's that going to look in the Muslim world? And how's it going to look that this guy says Muslims are evil and he's the guy who works with the President?"

Mr. Hooper was referring to Mr. Graham's son, Franklin, who runs the SBC. The younger Mr. Graham, who delivered the invocation at Mr. Bush's inauguration in 2001, has repeatedly gone on the record describing Islam as "wicked."

Mr. Graham has recently been more tolerant of Islam, but he has made it clear that the conversion of Muslims to Christianity is a goal for his volunteers.

"I believe as we work, God will always give us opportunities to tell others about His Son," he told the religious newsletter BeliefNet last week. "We are there to reach out to love them and to save them, and as a Christian, I do this in the name of Jesus Christ."

In response to criticism, many Christian aid groups, including Mr. Graham's, have toned down the religious messages in their work.

"We want to spread the message of Jesus Christ through outwork, by reaching out to people with humanitarian aid," said Sam Porter, disaster-relief director for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, the largest of the SBC's aid groups. "We are not there to preach; we are on a predominantly humanitarian mission and we want to work as Good Samaritans — we do our work with the love of Jesus Christ in our hearts."

In one major project, Baptist families have been asked to put together "gift of love" food boxes designed to provide a month's worth of basic nourishment to a family of five. "Please do not place any additional items/literature inside the box," the families are told. Mr. Porter, who runs the program, explained that this is to prevent them from being seen as missionary packages.

However, on the outside of each box will be a label bearing an Arabic translation of John 1:17: "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

While many evangelical aid workers are motivated by humanitarian desires, their mission statement makes it clear that they are required to attempt conversions: "It is the duty of every child of God to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness undergirded by a Christian lifestyle, and by other methods in harmony with the gospel of Christ."

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