Evangelical Christianity and Syrian Refugees

Several months ago, while reading articles about the refugee crisis, I came upon a video from Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian aid organization working in Greece to help Syrian refugees off of their rafts as they land. I was especially struck by some lines near the end of the video. Start at the 5:10 marker.

The text of this section is as follows:

We are the first faces that they see when they land. Probably a lot of them have never even met a Christian. When they land on this beach, we’re happy we can be here, and be here as part of that first step, and be here to just show them that there’s Christian people that love them.

Something sounded off about this, so I looked it up, and it turns out that Christians make up about 10% of Syria’s population. Suggesting that “a lot of” Syrian refugees have never met a Christian is akin to suggesting that a lot of Americans have never met an African American. Heck, some of the refugees on that boat might have been Christians! But maybe Syrian Christians are isolated to one area of the country, and live in fairly insular communities? Perhaps that could explain the Samaritan’s Purse volunteer’s comments?

The answer to that appears to be no. According to the BBC:

Despite their minority status, Christians have long been among Syria’s elite. They have been represented in many of the political groups which have vied for control of the country, including the secular Arab nationalist and socialist movements which eventually came to the fore.

The founder of the Baath Party, which has ruled Syria since 1963, was a Christian, and Christians rose to senior positions in the party, government and security forces, although they are generally not seen to have any real power compared with their Alawite and Sunni colleagues.

I did a bit more reading and have learned a few things I didn’t know. Most Christians in Syria have tried to remain neutral in the civil war that has gripped the country for nearly five years, and some of the rebels have interpreted their neutrality as being in favor of the current regime. This has led to violence, though Syrian Christians are in disagreement about the extent to which they have been targeted, it should also be noted that the Assad regime’s attacks on rebel territory tend to fall hardest on Syrian Muslims.

I already knew that Christians and other religious minorities (such as Yazidis) who have found themselves in ISIS-controlled territory have faced slavery, rape, and murder. I also already knew that ISIS considers moderate Muslims “apostate” and treats them little better. Most Syrians Muslims are no more happy about ISIS than are the Christians, Alawites, or Yazidis.

Still, I hadn’t really given much thought to the decisions a minority religious or ethnic group faces in a time of civil war. While most Syrian Christians have sought to remain neural, likely worried that a post-Assad Syria may mean replacing a secular government with an Islamist one, some Syrian Christians have actively supporting Assad and others have advocated in favor of democracy. These are tricky lines to walk. The rebels, too, are divided on the role of Syrian Christians in a new, post-Assad Syria. While some have chanted things like “Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave“—referring to a desire to exile Syrian Christians and eliminate another minority religious group, Alawites—others want a democracy where both Christians and Alawites play a role.

But I am clearly moving away from the original thrust of this post and into another area of controversy. Many in the U.S. are asking why only 3% of the Syrian refugees the nation has taken in are Christians when a full 10% of Syrians are Christian. There are plenty of reasons for this—Syrian Christians took longer to begin to leave Syria, because many felt protected by Assad; Syrian Christians tend to have more money, and as a result many have opted to come to the U.S. on tourist visas and then apply for asylum, thus remaining out of the refugee count; Syrian Christians often avoid UN refugee camps, instead taking shelter in churches, and it is from refugee camps that refugees coming to the U.S. are recruited; and some European countries have pledged to only take Christians, thus cutting down on the number of Christian refugees needing to seek asylum in the U.S.—but it does suggest that most western Christians are at least aware that there are such a thing as Syrian Christians.

And this reflects an interesting tension. Oftentimes, evangelical discussions of peoples around the globe break down into contradictory narratives. On the one hand, evangelicals believe that Muslims and members of other non-Christian religious groups around the world are probably wholly ignorant of what Christians believe, and that it is common for them to have never heard the gospel or met a Christian. At the same time, though, evangelicals are quick to talk about persecution of Christians across the globe, and to lambaste secular aid organizations for not doing enough to recognize the threats faced by Christians in countries like Syria.

There are other interesting things going on here, too. Who exactly qualifies as a Christian? In many cases “Christian” seems to be synonymous with “westerner.” Many evangelicals grow up learning doctrines and practices that are unique to western Christianity, but when they hear of the plight of persecuted Christians across the globe they assume that those Christians share the same doctrine they do. For example, most Syrian Christians belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, which teaches that works are necessary for salvation and that church tradition contains divine revelation alongside the Bible, both of which are antithetical to evangelicalism. Some evangelicals serve as missionaries to Catholics, especially in central and South America, believing that Catholics—who also believe in both works and tradition—are not truly Christians.

I do not deny that Christians in a number of countries of the Middle East have faced increased challenges (and violence) in recent years. Twenty years ago, countries like Iraq, Syria, and Egypt were ruled by secular dictators. These rulers enforced a sometimes uneasy peace between those of different religions and different religious sects, and actively protected Christians. These regimes have since fallen (or are crumbling), and the result has often been sectarian violence. I have a soft spot in my heart for religious minorities, and I feel for these groups—Christians, Yazidis, and Alawites alike. Atheists often face persecution in these same countries as well. I consider any form of religious persecution a travesty.

What I want to get at here, though, is the rather odd relationship American evangelicals, including those working at Samaritan’s Purse, seem to have with Christians across the globe. I grew up hearing stories of Christian persecution around the world, but there was comparatively little effort put into teaching me anything about the beliefs and practices of these Christians, and I ended up assuming they were basically just like we were—your generic evangelicals. I also grew up hearing stories about how little Muslims knew about what Christians believe, without realizing that Christians had historically had a sizable minority presence in countries across the Middle East.

The root of the problem seems to be a lack of education about other countries and other groups. This lack of education, of course, extends beyond evangelicals and into the American public as a whole. Our understanding of the globe, and our position in it, is generally severely lacking. And it is  likely this lack of understanding that led the man in the Samaritan’s Purse video above to suggest that his might be the first Christian face these refugees and seen, in the face of the reality that these refugees had lived in a country that was both 10% Christian and where Christians tended to be among the nation’s elite, often with positions in government.

This holiday season, my curiosity piqued by my the knowledge I’ve gained about Syrian Christians, I’m going to take some time to learn more about other countries and other regions, other people groups and other religions. In the end, I’m rather thankful to the Samaritan’s Purse video for reminding to me how little we westerners—evangelical and non-evangelical alike—tend to know about the rest of the globe.