Diocesan Meeting on Persecuted Christians

Aarhus Christians hear about the cost of faith

In early November the Aarhus Diocese held a day’s meeting on Persecuted Christians – the Cost of Faith. The sixty participants from throughout the diocese first heard Associate Professor Dr. Peter Lodberg present the historical background and the systems that create such oppression, including the Nazi persecution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

 

Merete Juel Jensen then spoke about her experiences of Israeli harassment of Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, including the simple refusal to allow Christians to attend Easter services in Jerusalem. “They’ll give a visa to a small child but not to its parents. Persecution is not always so dramatic as to end in an escape from death.”

 

Let the world know
Massoud Fouroozandeh is the first Danish Lutheran pastor with a Muslim background (see Church News September 2011). He serves an independent church in Odense, the Church of Love, which now has branches in Copenhagen and Aarhus for a mainly Middle Eastern congregation. He has himself experienced harassment in Denmark as a convert from Islam. His car has been attacked twice and his children have been bullied, so much so that his family have had to move and his children change schools. 

 

“In Iran the pressure on Christians is to conceal their Christian faith, accept persecution or leave the country. Although it’s not in the Koran, apostasy is punishable by death according to some scholars, and there are fanatical Islamists around who wish to enforce this. Please don’t hesitate to let the world know of these things, said Pastor Fouroozandeh. “The authorities hate to be maligned in the west”.

 

Henrik Ertner Rasmussen from the Danish European Mission talked about the Hindus’ persecution of Christians in India. Arson is a major problem – the burning of homes and churches in a democratic country where caste still plays a role in victimization. Michael Besawrous added that the Copts in Egypt also suffered from Islamist persecution particularly arson by the Salanistas.

 

Being a Christian but “looking like a Muslim”
Albert Panemeen, an Iraqi from the Assyrian Church, lamented the lack of understanding in Denmark of what people have had to leave behind because of their faith. “Our religion is the core of our being, but that barely makes sense in Denmark. I have Middle Eastern features but am now a teacher in a Danish comprehensive school, where some of my pupils won’t believe that I can be a Christian, so strong is the Muslim stereotype in their minds.”

 

Birthe Munck-Fairwood is leader of The Intercultural Christian Centre. This is a national network of 155 Danish Lutheran churches, international/migrant churches and Christian NGOs, founded in 1994 as a resource centre for local churches and Christian organisations ministering to refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers. She ended the day by speaking of the resources that Christian refugees in Denmark possess. “We can be inspired by their inner commitment to the Christian faith. Our centre tries to help them with all these issues and together with other groups we’re trying to persuade the government how important a factor religious persecution can be in an application for asylum. The Danish authorities should be more knowledgeable about codes of persecution, especially in Islamic countries.”

 

By Edward Broadbridge

 

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