Most people in the West have little idea of the threats Christians endure around the world…victims of persecution are ‘too Christian’ to excite the Left, and ‘too foreign’ to interest the Right. This was not always the case… –Author John Allen, in The Global War on Christians (2013)

PRAYER: (from the Lectionary)

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

SCRIPTURES: (from the Lectionary)

Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11, 45b
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

PRAYER FOCUS: Times of Trouble

The news today is heartbreaking. As you read this, Iraqi Christians are being persecuted–driven from their homes, stripped of their belongings and money. Many are being murdered. The Monday Prayer asks that you pause to pray for these dear brothers and sisters.

The following article is copied from the Facebook page of our dear friend Canon Andrew White, the “Vicar of Baghdad”, who remains one of the most reliable witnesses to the events now unfolding in Iraq:

For Iraqi Christian Fadi and his young family it is a lonely wait to see whether they will be executed soon. Their Christian neighbours and friends have already fled the city of Mosul in Iraq’s north, which last month fell into the hands of Sunni jihadists led by the Islamic State group, which espouses an extreme form of Islam. Along with the rest of the city’s estimated 25,000 Christians who had not already fled years of kidnappings, bombings and shootings, Sunni militants gave 36-year-old Fadi, his wife and son until Saturday to comply with a brutal ultimatum: convert to Islam, pay an unspecified tax, leave the city or die.

“I’m staying. I already feel dead,” Fadi, a teacher, told AFP by telephone moments before the deadline ran out. “Only my soul remains, and if they want to take that I don’t have a problem,” he added, giving only his first name.

On Friday, Mosul’s mosques called through loudspeakers for Christians to leave, after centuries of being part of the once cosmopolitan city’s social fabric. Fadi said he could not afford to flee and argued that the prospects for those who did were hardly better.

Islamic State (IS) militants robbed departing Christians of their belongings, he said, leaving them to face destitution in grim camps for the displaced. “They were stopped by members of Islamic State, who took everything they had. Mobile phones, money, jewellery,” he said, speaking of the fate of some 25 Christian families who had recently fled.

“When my cousin and friends, from three families, tried to plead with them, they took their cars.”

IS fighters took control of Mosul and swathes of north and west Iraq in a sweeping offensive that began last month. Their leader has since then declared a “caliphate” straddling Iraq and Syria. The group claims its goal is to return the lands they conquer to a state approximating that of early Islam, in which Jews and Christians who did not convert had to pay a “jizya” tribute to their Muslim rulers.

“From one old woman they took $15,000 (11,100 euros). She asked for just $100 of it so she could reach Dohuk. They told her that these are the funds of the Islamic State, and we cannot give it to you,” Fadi said.

Robbed of their cars and cash, many Christians were forced to walk to safety. Some of Mosul’s Christians might be able to afford to pay the jizya, but they appear unwilling to take their chances living under the thumb of rulers notorious for executing and crucifying their opponents.

“Maybe a few are still hiding in Mosul but I don’t think any would have decided to pay jizya or convert. There is no Christian who can trust these gangsters,” Yonadam Kanna, Iraq’s most prominent Christian leader, told AFP. “They even took wedding rings from women fleeing the city at checkpoints… I am astonished they can claim to be Muslims.”

In a purported statement issued by IS last week which detailed the ultimatum for Mosul’s Christians, there will be nothing left for those who do not comply “but the sword”.

In times of trouble like these our faith must become more than words in a book, more than a collection of thoughts on morality. Here is where our faith is either real or it is not. Iraqi Christians in the way of “IS” terrorism are facing a life-or-death situation. Let all of us who believe pray that their faith will withstand this tribulation.

It’s Monday Morning. Please pray for the Persecuted Church. As in this week’s Lectionary Prayer, ask Father-God to increase and multiply His mercy, that we may pass through things temporal and lose not the things eternal.

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

To give to Relief and Reconciliation in Iraq: www.frrme.org