With each passing year, the Middle East becomes more Islamic, and more
radicalized, as Christians are being forced out of nation after nation, due
to persecution and death, economic hardship, discrimination and other
reasons. This development may eventually set the scenario for an Islamic
Beast and Islamic False Prophet to rise to power who will inspire the
Muslim/Arab nations to rise up against Israel, as per the Books of Daniel
and Revelation. Following is a news article which describes the decline in
the number of Christians in the Middle East.


Christians in Mideast Losing Numbers and Influence

By ETHAN BRONNER - NYT

May 12, 2009


JERUSALEM -- Christians used to be a vital force in the Middle East. They
dominated Lebanon and filled top jobs in the Palestinian movement. In Egypt,
they were wealthy beyond their number. In Iraq, they packed the universities
and professions. Across the region, their orientation was a vital link to
the West, a counterpoint to prevailing trends.

But as Pope Benedict XVI wends his way across the Holy Land this week, he is
addressing a dwindling and threatened Christian population driven to
emigration by political violence, lack of economic opportunity and the rise
of radical Islam. A region that a century ago was 20 percent Christian is
about 5 percent today and dropping.

Since it was here that Jesus walked and Christianity was born, the papal
visit highlights a prospect many consider deeply troubling for the globe's
largest faith, adhered to by a third of humanity -- its most powerful and
historic shrines could become museum relics with no connection to those who
live among them.

"I fear the extinction of Christianity in Iraq and the Middle East," the
Rev. Jean Benjamin Sleiman, the Catholic archbishop of Baghdad, said in a
comment echoed across the region.

The pope, in a Mass on Tuesday at the foot of the Mount of Olives, addressed
"the tragic reality" of the "departure of so many members of
the Christian
community in recent years."

He said: "While understandable reasons lead many, especially the young, to
emigrate, this decision brings in its wake a great cultural and spiritual
impoverishment to the city. Today I wish to repeat what I have said on other
occasions: in the Holy Land there is room for everyone!"

On Sunday in Jordan the pope argued that Christians had a role here in
reconciliation, that their very presence eased the strife, and that the
decline of that presence could help to increase extremism. When the mix of
beliefs and lifestyles goes down, orthodoxy rises, he implied, as does
uniformity of the cultural landscape in a region where tolerance is not an
outstanding virtue.

A Syrian international aid worker said, "When other Arabs find out that I am
Christian, many seem shocked to discover that you can be both an Arab and a
Christian." The worker asked to remain anonymous so as not to bring
attention to his faith.

The Middle East is now, of course, overwhelmingly Muslim. Except for Israel,
with its six million Jews, there is no country where Islam does not prevail.
This includes Lebanon, where Christians now amount to a quarter of the
population, and the non-Arab countries of Iran and Turkey.

Local Christians are torn between sounding the alarm and staying mum, unsure
whether attention will reduce the problem or aggravate it by driving out
those who remain.

With Islam pushing aside nationalism as the central force behind the
politics of identity, Christians who played important roles in various
national struggles find themselves left out. And since Islamic culture,
especially in its more fundamental stripes, often defines itself in contrast
to the West, Christianity has in some places been relegated to an enemy --
or least foreign -- culture.

"Unless there is a turn toward secularism in the Arab world, I don't think
there is a future for Christians here," said Sarkis Naoum, a Christian
columnist for the Lebanese newspaper Al Nahar.

Just as some opponents of President Obama sought to defame him by claiming
he was a Muslim, so in Turkey was President Abdullah Gul accused of having
Christian origins. Mr. Gul won a court case last December against a member
of Parliament who made the accusation.

A century ago there were millions of Christians in what is today Turkey; now
there are 150,000. There is a house in Turkey where the Virgin Mary is
believed to have spent her last days, yet the country's National Assembly
and military have no Christian members or officers except temporary recruits
doing mandatory service. Violence against Christians has risen.

Among Palestinians, Islam is also playing an unprecedented role in defining
identity, especially in Gaza, ruled by Hamas. Benedict's arrival in
Jerusalem on Monday prompted a radical member of the legislature in Gaza to
call on Arab governments not to greet him because of his contentious remark
in 2006 regarding the Prophet Muhammad.

The West Bank Palestinian leadership, more secular, tries to include
Christians to ward off separatist sentiments and stop the population
decline. It has been a losing battle. In 1948, Jerusalem was about one-fifth
Christian. Today it is 2 percent.

Rafiq Husseini, the chief of staff of President Mahmoud Abbas's office, said
of the exodus of Christians: "It is a very negative thing if it continues to
happen. Our task, from the president downwards, is to keep the presence of
the Christians alive and well."

In Bethlehem, where the Church of the Nativity marks where Jesus is said to
have been born, Christians now make up barely a third of the population
after centuries of being 80 percent of it. Emigration is the first option
for anyone who has the opportunity, and there are large communities of
Christian emigres throughout the West to absorb them.

"Economy, economy, economy," said Fayez Khano, 63, a member of the Assyrian
community, explaining the reasons for the continuing exodus while cutting
olive-wood figurines in his family workshop on Manger Street. Mr. Khano's
three adult children live in Dublin, and since business is slow he and his
wife are about to go to Dublin for six months.

The story has been similar in Iraq. Of the 1.4 million Christians there at
the time of the American invasion in 2003, nearly half have fled, according
to American government reports and local Iraqi Christians.

Many left early in the war when they were attacked for working with the
Americans, but the exodus gained speed when Christians became targets in
Iraq's raging sectarian war. Churches were bombed, and priests as well as
lay Christians were murdered. As recently as March 2008, an archbishop was
kidnapped and killed outside the northern city of Mosul.

And in Egypt, where 10 percent of the country is Coptic Christian, the
prevalent religious discourse has drifted from what was considered to be a
moderate Egyptian Islam toward a far less tolerant Saudi-branded Islam.

In Saudi Arabia, churches are illegal. In the rest of the Persian Gulf
region, Christians are foreign workers without the prospect of citizenship.

The decline of the Christian population and voice in the region is not only
a source of concern for Christians, but for broadminded Muslims as well.

"Here in Lebanon, Muslims will often tell you Lebanon is no good without the
Christians, and they mean it," said Kemal Salibi, a historian. "The mix of
religions and cultures that makes this place so tolerant would disappear."


Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS  Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23
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