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By Edwin Mora9 Mar 2018
The
number of Assyrians now living in the United States and Mexico after being
forced out of the cradle of Christianity in and around Iraq by Islamic
extremists may soon exceed the number of their counterparts living at home,
according to author Eric Metaxas.
Metaxas,
the host of the Eric Metaxas Show, a co-host of “BreakPoint” radio, and a New
York Times #1 best-selling author, recently learned of this development. In an
article that has been carried out by various news outlets, Metaxas noted:
"More
Syriac Christians live outside their ancestral homelands than in them. It’s
possible that if present trends hold, there will be more Syriac Christians in
the United States and Mexico than in Iraq.
These
are the people we have been praying for when we pray for the persecuted—and
they have a lot to teach us, not the least of which is how to remain faithful
in the face of unimaginable oppression and persecution."
Throughout
history, descendants from ancient Assyrian civilizations who still speak the
language of Jesus Christ and his disciples—Chaldeans and Syriacs—have suffered
persecution at the hands of Muslims who eventually became the majority in the
lands once inhabited by Christians.
“Sunni,
Shia, and Kurd may agree on little else, but all have made sport of brutalizing
their Christian neighbors,” Metaxas writes.
More
recently, the United Nations and the United States determined that the Islamic
State (ISIS/ISIL) carried out genocide against the Christian minority
populations in the territories they controlled in Iraq and Syria and their
surroundings.
Displaced
by the ongoing conflict in their historical homeland, Assyria—which covers the
once Christian-majority part of Iraq known as the Nineveh Plain as well as
southern Turkey and Syria—many followers of Jesus left to the United States and
Mexico.
Metaxas
writes:
"To
catch a glimpse of just how ancient—and strong—our Christian faith truly is,
take a drive up the Jersey Turnpike. Say what?
How
cool would it be to walk into a church filled with worshipers all speaking the
same language that Jesus and his apostles spoke? You might think that you need
a time machine. You don’t. You don’t even need to go to the Middle East. New
Jersey will do."
Some
of the Assyrians who stayed behind in the Middle East formed militias to defend
their homelands.
U.S.
President Donald Trump has vowed to assist Christians in the Middle East. Some
of the Christians are unable to go back to their homes, citing an ongoing ISIS
threat and lack of infrastructure.
Nevertheless,
they have proven to be resilient, celebrating Christmas in places like Mosul,
Iraq’s second largest city, soon after the U.S.-led coalition and their allies
pushed ISIS out.
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