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American and Syrian Christians

Bob Wright sees calls for intervention in Syria dividing Christian conservatives from neoconservatives: So far they [Syrian Christians] seem to be sticking with him, and word of their allegiance is reaching American Christians. The evangelical press is reporting that Syrian Christians fear Assad’s fall and is quoting them as warning against foreign intervention. Catholic periodicals […]

Bob Wright sees calls for intervention in Syria dividing Christian conservatives from neoconservatives:

So far they [Syrian Christians] seem to be sticking with him, and word of their allegiance is reaching American Christians. The evangelical press is reporting that Syrian Christians fear Assad’s fall and is quoting them as warning against foreign intervention. Catholic periodicals convey similar concerns, and illustrate them with, for example, reports that Syrian rebels are using Christians as human shields. And Jihad Watch, the right-wing website run by Robert Spencer, a Catholic, bemoans what will happen to Syrian Christians as “Assad’s enemies divide the spoils of the fallen regime.” (Spencer has in the past been skeptical of interventions, but he reaches conservative Christians who have been less skeptical.) The alliance between neocons and conservative Christians that has worked in the past is going to be harder to put together this time.

A few distinctions need to be made here. Some Christian conservatives are concerned about the fate of their co-religionists because they belong to churches that have a large presence in Syria. They have seen how Christian communities in the region have suffered under new majoritarian governments, and they have never had any enthusiasm for democracy promotion as a policy. They recognize that foreign interventions in religiously diverse countries over the last decade or so have resulted in disasters for Christian minorities. Others are alarmed by the increasing power of Islamist groups during the uprisings over the last year, which is the main reason why popular anti-jihadists are talking about the danger to Syria’s Christians. These groups are not mutually exclusive, but their priorities may be somewhat different.

The “alliance” to which Wright refers is usually founded on common opposition to jihadist terrorism and, to a lesser extent, support for U.S.-Israel ties, but it is much weaker when it comes to proposals for backing foreign rebels in an internal conflict in which most local Christians are on the other side. Many American Christians have often supported aggressive U.S. and Israeli policies in the past as if Near Eastern Christians didn’t exist. Partly because of the popular uprisings of the last year, some have been made more aware of and sympathetic to their co-religionists in the region than they seem to have been before. The vast majority of Americans doesn’t want the U.S. to be involved in Syria anyway, but the concern that intervention could do great harm to Syria’s Christians is another reason why many Americans will reject greater U.S. involvement.

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