Thursday 11 February, 2010

World
Middle East

A nuclear bomb going off at a Nevada Test Site.

By Charles Gardner

News that Iran is upgrading its nuclear programme with increased uranium enrichment should ring alarm bells across the nations.

They say it is for peaceful purposes but, with a president who has repeatedly declared his wish to see Israel “wiped off the map”, it poses a serious worry for the entire Middle East – and the whole world besides.

Experts generally agree that the latest advance in Iranian nuclear technology indicates a potential capability for producing a bomb. And with the country having already tested missiles capable of reaching Israel, it is no wonder that the Jewish nation is living in fear.

Will the Western nations stand idly by, as they did when Hitler rebuilt the German arsenal, until it is too late?

Even as I write, the growing Christian community in Iran is undergoing severe persecution – in some ways comparable to what the Jews suffered under the Nazis in the years leading up to World War II.

There are now understood to be at least 14 Iranian Christians in prison for their faith, and most are converts from Islam who face the criminal charge of apostasy, which could lead to a death sentence.

“Every Iranian Muslim knows that to become a Christian involves breaking the law and risking your life,” writes ASSIST News Service special correspondent Elizabeth Kendal. “Yet in the midst of this, God is at work and the church is growing. Iranian Christians need our prayers.”

And Christians are being imprisoned amidst mounting repression against all who would oppose the state – as many are doing these days.

But the political struggles in Iran have nothing to do with religious freedom and everything to do with money and lifestyle, according to Ms Kendal.

The regime is more than a Shi’ite Muslim theocracy; it is a totalitarian police state whole rulers are protected by an army of Revolutionary Guards along with several million state-sanctioned vigilantes.

The opposition – as conservative and Islamist as the ruling regime – objects to President Ahmadinejad’s overt belligerence because of its negative economic impact.

While subsidies may pacify the impoverished masses, the more pragmatic urban elite want change.

What the Iranian Church wants, however, is religious liberty – something that is anathema to Islam.

And yet many Muslims in Iran and other parts of the Middle East are coming to faith in Jesus, often in extraordinary ways through such experiences as visions of Christ! Yes, people deeply embedded in Islamic traditions have been visited from on high – rather as Mary and Joseph were visited by angels in advance of the birth of Christ. So it is no wonder they are prepared to risk their lives for the truth now revealed to them.

We don’t wish Iran to be destroyed – which is a possibility if Israel, partially supported at least by America, is attacked or further threatened.

Pray for President Ahmadinejad, who apparently has Jewish heritage himself, to realise he is attacking his own people and that his brand of Islam does not advance peace in the Middle East.

Photo: Public Domain