It was explained to me that Iraq is a country that respects the freedom of worship but not the freedom of religion. In other words, Christians who are non-Muslims are allowed to worship God and meet together. Muslims, however, are prohibited from converting to Christianity.
God has placed Christians and specifically Southern Baptists in some key roles within the military in Iraq. While proselytizing Muslims is strictly prohibited, Christians in the military are demonstrating the love of God in their actions. The fruit of the Spirit that exudes from our chaplains and Christian troops is not lost on the Iraqis.
Only God knows the future of Iraq and its people. His ways are not our ways and His plans rarely fit into a nice, neat little package that we can comprehend. But God has a plan for the people of Iraq, of that I’m sure.
I heard again and again that history is being made in Iraq. “His Story” began in what is now modern-day Iraq and continues there to this day.
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I read on one website that in Iraq, in the year before the war in 2003 there were only 3,000 known evangelical Christians in Iraq, and only six evangelical churches. Today there are more than 25,000 Iraqi believers in 25 churches in Baghdad alone. And hundreds of new churches in other areas of Iraq.
According to Muslim sources, over 6 million Muslims convert from Islam to Christianity each year.
When Muslims come to Christ, especially in the Middle East, they usually are disinherited by their family, shunned by their friends, and often their family and/or friends will try to kill them. In a country led by Shari'a law, it is a capital crime, punishable by death. That being the case, if Americans would show that same level of commitment and sacrifice that Muslims turning to Christ do, and deem the salvation of souls more important than their own health or well-being (in other words, ignoring the ban on 'proselytizing'), I wonder how many more Muslims might come to Christ.
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