Christmas in Baghdad hasn’t been a merry time in quite a number of years. Throughout the US occupation Iraqi Christians have been targeted regularly for having at least a nominally similar religious to the invading forces and most Christmas celebrations have been subdued, to say the least.
This year however, Christmas is pretty much canceled. With violence against Baghdad’s Christian community soaring to new heights and large numbers of the community fleeing into refugee status in Europe and Syria, all but one church has canceled their celebrations, and plan to remain closed for Christmas
Which may be a prudent move, unfortunately. In Iraq sectarian attacks have regularly centered around religious holidays, with Shi’ite pilgrims getting hit en masse during almost every major Shi’ite holiday in the past several years. Christmas, the really identifiable Christian holiday in a nation with an ancient, but dwindling, Christian community, is likely to be a popular time to attack.
Given the number of high profile killings and complaints that the Iraqi government seems disinterested in protecting them, this Christmas will be a grim one for Iraqis indeed. But at the rate they are fleeing the country, it may be one of the last ones marked at all.
One would think that the Christian Right in this country would be aghast at US actions which are precipitating the destruction of indigenous Christianity in and near the cradle of the faith. But it seems that blinkered enthusiasm for Israel and a mania for murdering Muslims—whatever those have to do with salvation through faith in Christ—trump fellowship with Christians who belong to the wrong denomination or have a shade too much melanin or perhaps simply speak the *wrong* Semitic language. I guess that's what happens when you derive the bulk of your crack-brained theology from *Left Behind* and Fox News.