For the first time in 550 years, Christianity inside Turkey
is growing in numbers and influence. But its recent growth comes at a high
price: since February 2006, radicalized Muslims have killed five Christians—the
kind of cold-blooded martyrdom not seen in decades.
Modern-day Turkey's
73 million citizens, 98 percent of whom are Muslims, are experiencing social
and political upheaval. The country is attempting to improve its economic and
human-rights record in order to join the European Union. Turkey's relations with the United States are strained as an ally in the war
in Iraq,
and because of Congress's aborted effort to pass the Armenian genocide
resolution. Also, Turkey's border disputes with Greece over land around the
Aegean Sea, as well as violent skirmishes with Kurdish rebels on its southern
border, keep this nation's formidable military on highest alert.
This is the context in which a handful of Islamic radicals
targeted Christians as "enemies of the state" because of their
association with Western groups and their alleged support of Kurdish rebels.
The five killed within the last two years were:
Andrea Santoro, a Catholic priest killed in February 2006. A
16-year-old youth shot Santoro as he was praying in the Santa
Maria Church in Trabzon, Turkey.
Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor. In January
2007, a teenager gunned down Dink, who had been convicted of "insulting
Turkishness" two years prior.
The three Malatya martyrs:
Necati Aydin, a Turkish pastor; Tilmann Geske, a missions worker from Germany; and
Ugur Yuksel, a new Christian convert from Islam. In April 2007, young radicals
feigning curiosity about Christianity killed the three men by slitting their
throats at a Christian publishing house in southeastern Turkey. Their
survivors include five children, two widows, and a fiancée.
In November, a Turkish court set a trial date for the five
suspects involved in the Malatya
killings for early January. Police are calling for life imprisonment and said
all five suspects have confessed to the murders. The suspects accused the
Christians of "forcing local girls into prostitution" and of praising
the violence of rebel Kurds. (About 30,000 people have died since the 1980s in
rebel-related violence.) Meanwhile, the Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey is
calling Turkish congregations to pray and fast every Thursday for the next
several weeks in preparation for the trial.
Isa Karatas of the Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey told
Compass Direct News, "It is clear from these statements of the suspects
that there is some group of powerful influence behind them. These people want
to portray Turkey's
Protestants as enemies of the nation."
"At the same time," he added, "because honor is
such an important concept in our culture, they are trying to accuse us of
having weak morals, so that they can find a justification for their
murders."
Few nations have as rich a Christian history as Turkey. This is
where Paul founded some of the earliest churches, including the church at Ephesus. Seven churches
in this region were addressed in the Book of Revelation. Those in the early
monastic movement found the caves of Cappadocia
a near-perfect place to live out lives of prayer. Constantinople, now the city
of Istanbul, became the capital of the Roman Empire just as it was being Christianized, and the
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has been the leader of worldwide
Orthodoxy for centuries.
But Christianity came under Islamic rule in Turkey in 1453
and steadily declined for centuries; the last 100 years have been the worst. In
1900, the Christian population was 22 percent. Now most experts estimate that
there are fewer than 200,000 Christians nationwide, comprising less than 0.3
percent of the population.
Protestant missions work began around 1820. There are
now more than 30 Protestant organizations operating nationwide. In 1999, the
Izmit earthquake, which killed 17,000 and left 800,000 homeless, led Christian
agencies to start new relief work, and they eventually began working alongside
independent Christian fellowships. These fellowships, along with new growth in
traditional Orthodox congregations, have created a 3 percent annual growth in
the country's Christian population, about three times Turkey's
overall population growth rate. Following the Malatya
murders, Christianity Today traveled to Turkey, meeting church leaders from
throughout the region.
Tasting Forbidden Fruit
In so many ways, the story of Turgay Ucal, a pastor of
an independent church in Istanbul,
embodies the promise and peril of Turkish Christianity. On a weekday afternoon,
Ucal sat down with CT to describe his journey to faith in Jesus Christ.
Ucal (pronounced u-CHAAL) grew up in Old
Town, Istanbul. He told CT that as a high school
student he took a leap of faith, almost literally, out of his comfort zone. In
Turkish life, generations of families live together with unlocked doors and few
secrets. One day, he strolled down a cobblestone street, past some decaying
buildings. He walked back and forth to make sure no one he knew was around—and
slipped into a Catholic church.
At the time, Ucal was deeply curious about what had happened to
Jesus when, as the Koran says, he left this earth still alive. "The Koran
said Jesus didn't die," Ucal recalls, "and I asked, 'Why? What is in
the Bible?'—I wondered."
Turkey's
religious landscape is not simple: sharply partisan politics, strident
nationalism, and disputed history make it a complex scene. Secular nationalists
who are Muslim in private practice fiercely oppose public religiosity. They see
Christian converts as tools of Western powers that want to undermine Turkey's
sovereignty.
In the 1960s, the era in which Ucal grew up, Turks in Istanbul were exploring
many forbidden fruits. Coca-Cola and Pepsi factories opened up. Turkish kids
tasted hot dogs for the first time, despite the warning that hot dogs might
contain donkey meat.
Others, like Ucal, drew close to Christ.
Thirty years later, the church started by new believers has
achieved new maturity and public acceptance. The independent Turkish church now
comprises almost 100 congregations and more than 100 house fellowships.
Turkish Christians of Muslim backgrounds have anchored the
leadership of the church around their own new identity—and by portraying Jesus
Christ as a Turk. This helps resolve a crucial conflict in Turkish minds, that
only Muslims can be truly "Turkish."
Leaders have discovered that by the time a Turk of Muslim
background enters a church, he or she is often ready to convert and is looking
for reassurance. Ucal told CT that when he went to university to study Islamic
literature, he even belonged to an Islamic youth group. But his ultimate
purpose was to learn more about Jesus. "At the university, I saw the
biblical background to what I was studying," he said. "The Bible
became my fate."
He said Christianity offered a new balance of freedom in a
disciplined context, transcending the stringent legalism of his upbringing. As
a young man, Ucal had tried to be a good Muslim. "My family was Muslim. I
prostrated myself to Mecca
five times a day. I participated in 'The Light' [Nurcu], a Muslim youth group.
I had a very structured Muslim mind."
Changed Identity
New Christian believers find it very difficult to
become openly active in Turkey's
traditional churches—Armenian Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Rite Catholic, and
Greek Orthodox. The handful of Protestant-affiliated congregations operate in
the open, but they mainly meet the needs of ethnic minority groups or
Westerners living in Turkey.
So new Christians coming from Muslim families are often
isolated and ostracized. Ucal realized there was more to Christian living than
an individualized faith. He wanted to create a Turkish church for
Islamic-background Turks like himself.
Shortly after becoming a believer, Ucal had not told
anyone what had happened to him spiritually. But he quietly opened a court case
to change his religious identity registration.
His father, a military officer responsible for
defending Istanbul's
harbor, saw his son's name on the list of people changing their religious affiliation.
Even today there is a common belief that the Greeks use Turkish converts to
Christianity as spies. Ucal says, "Buddhism is okay, but not Christianity.
There was a history."
When Ucal's father saw his son's name included on the
list, he went ballistic. He stormed home, screaming to his wife, "They are
turning our son into a spy!"
At first, Ucal's father became more Muslim in reaction
to his son's faith. Later, he took a closer look. His son hadn't changed
friends and seemed more at ease. What most people saw was that the young
Christian hadn't changed his identity as a Turk. One individual told CT,
"He still seemed to be a real Turk."
Ucal kept living within the Turkish Muslim community.
There was also a growing sense among his generation that they were reshaping Turkey into a
nation that respected freedom and religious diversity. "We have created a
new world for us—for me—in my own country," Ucal says.
Engaging Islamic Society
In 1986, Ucal finally started a church. His tiny
congregation was allowed to worship for 60 minutes every 15 days inside the
Swedish Consulate in Istanbul.
But Turkish newspapers immediately made a big deal out
of a Muslim-background pastor starting a Christian church for Muslim-background
Turks. His parents hadn't become used to Ucal being a Christian and had no idea
he was going to start a church. They were startled when they opened their
morning newspaper. "Those years were terrible," Ucal recalls. His
parents were frightened for their son. Campus Crusade staff members who were
helping Ucal warned, "Turgay, you will die." Yet they stayed with
him. Within a year, Ucal had 20 Muslim-background Turks in his church, and
stability was emerging.
Ucal's congregation moved toward a charismatic,
Vineyard-style form of Christianity. Meanwhile, Ucal served in the army for
eight months and received training in ministry in the Philippines and South Korea. After that, Ucal
decided to plant a different kind of church based on systematic theological
teaching. While in South
Korea, he had noticed the parallels between
systematic theology and the disciplined Islamic lifestyle and mindset. He
wondered if other Muslim-background Turks might respond to a more structured
approach than the informal evangelicalism of which he was a part. Ucal found that
his Muslim neighbors are attracted to systematic approaches to religious
instruction, and are also easily touched emotionally. So Ucal began approaching
them with an "emotional Calvinism."
Ucal started arguing that Christianity was "authentically
Turkish" and "socially natural." This became a huge breakthrough
for believers. Today, Ucal's Istanbul Presbyterian Church is one of the largest
churches nationally. And something else happened beyond Ucal's wildest
imagination: His parents began visiting his church.
Other like-minded leaders have begun new churches, but for
different reasons. The Ankara Church, in Turkey's capital, has grown with an
emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Four other churches (Izmit
Protestant, Eskisehir Protestant; and in Istanbul,
Altintepe Church and Besiktas Protestant) have
grown through effective mentoring from a culturally savvy Spaniard, Carlos
Madrigal.
Anadolu
Turk Protestant
Church, located in the
same neighborhood as Ucal's church, has greatly benefited from inquirers from a
Bible Correspondence course that Operation Mobilization began 30 years ago.
In the strife-torn eastern part of Turkey, pastor Ahmet Guvener has created a
much-admired evangelistic strategy that has resulted in a multiethnic church of Turks and Kurds. Guvener has launched
youth teams that stay within their Islamic social networks and form long-term
relations with neighborhood families. The strategy reflects a theme of many of
the successful evangelistic efforts: direct engagement with the cultural milieu
of Muslim-majority society.
Another common practice among these Christians is
teaching morality in the public square. Pastor Kaan Koryurek of Besiktas
Protestant makes a point of showing how the Bible inveighs against public
corruption, a problem Turks are deeply motivated to fight. Koryurek says,
"Today I preached on the fig tree that had no fruit. Jesus used it as a
warning and then went to throw out the traders and moneychangers in the
temple." After the service, several people shared how they were standing
up against corruption in their workplaces.
Not Honor, But Jesus
According to the Istanbul-based church growth center
Silas, the four most common channels of Turks coming to faith are: a personal
relationship with a believer; taking the aforementioned Bible Correspondence
course; a church visit; and the Internet. No matter the channel, new Turkish
Christians are quick to make use of traditional beliefs, culture, and
relational networks to extend the influence of their ministry and teaching.
Ucal and his wife, Sibel, have adapted Sufi music,
which is based on mystical Islamic traditions and popular among Muslims, to the
lyrics of Christian hymns. Many people request cds of their music over the
Internet, and some of them came to the church for the first time to hear the
music.
As many have noted, Muslims place much weight on
dreams and visions. In 1989, after Sibel became a Christian, she wondered if
there were any other young Turkish believers around. "I prayed for a
Turkish believer husband and to serve God. People teased me: 'Where can you
find a Turkish man who believes in God?'"
Eventually, she found her way to Ucal's church. After
a month of watching Sibel and a long lunch together one day, Ucal was smitten
and ready to get married. Sibel says, "I was surprised, but I was ready to
hear that. I saw it in my dream that God gave me." After eight months,
they were married.
Murat Akgul, an elder at Ucal's church, has been
shaped by a vision his wife had. Akgul and his wife come from Turkish
subcultures that celebrate warfare and fighting. He had trained for a military
career until he became disillusioned by the army's harsh conditions.
Then his wife became a Christian, which almost led to a divorce
and triggered threats of an honor killing. Akgul recalls that in 1999, when his
wife first believed, "It was very dangerous for us." He feared his
wife's family would kill her. Her father had cut off the head of his brother in
an honor murder and had spent 20 years in jail for it.
Akgul couldn't bring himself to abandon his wife to an honor
killing. Big and tough, he stayed to protect her. They also believe God visited
their house to protect them.
"One night my wife was at the stove in the kitchen and she
wanted to die," says Akgul. The pressure, the fear, and the arguments with
her husband built an overwhelming mountain before her. She leaned across the
stove to pray, "If you are God, give me a sign."
Akgul said, "At midnight, a star came from far
away to our house. A great light exploded in front of the windows. She thought
that this was a sign from God, and it gave her strength."
For the next five years, Akgul stayed by his wife to
protect her from murder, but the tensions were palpable. In the morning, Akgul
said he could feel his skin tighten up as he prepared for the day. But he
noticed a steady transformation in his wife's perspective. Instead of wanting
to kill her enemies, she started to become more peaceful and gentle. "She
was very deeply changed," Akgul says.
Three years ago, Akgul was lying on his bed listening
to a radio appeal for funds for a hospital. Then he heard a voice in the
bedroom say, "Matthew 6. Matthew 6. Matthew 6." Startled, he got up
and looked around. He went out to his wife in the kitchen and asked, "What
is Matthew 6?" She opened her Bible and read aloud how alms should be
given to God, not man. Strangely enough, that verse broke open Akgul's heart.
"I realized that life is not about honor, but Jesus."
During the same year, Ucal appeared on national
television, debating a Muslim leader. The pastor didn't attack Islam but
kindly, reasonably, and boldly answered the leader's charges. The Muslim leader
was brusque and bullying. The media's coverage was sensational and favored
Ucal. Other Muslims called for the leader to get off the air. Akgul watched
these programs and realized that a "real Turk" from a Muslim
background could openly believe in Jesus. In time, he and his wife joined
Ucal's church, where Akgul now serves in leadership.
Love Without Fear
Despite the progress, real danger persists for
outspoken Christians. It is not from the conservative Muslims who control the
government. Indeed, most Turkish pastors with whom CT talked favored the
reelection of the conservative Muslim Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Rather, the danger is primarily from strident
ultranationalists and their youth movement, known as the Grey Wolves. Some
experts say the Grey Wolves are terrorists responsible for hundreds of
killings.
Christian leaders told CT that the Malatya murders have left a deep impression
about the cost of discipleship. These leaders vividly remember the moment they
heard the news of the killings.
Pastor Koryurek remembers that he was on the ferry
from Asian Istanbul to European Istanbul. "Brother Ibrahim and I were
talking when the cell phone rang. I saw tears start to form." The ferry's
motor chugged in the background, and the wet wind seemed to stand still as
Koryurek began to guess what happened. Ibrahim closed his cell phone and said,
"Our brothers were killed." They couldn't move.
Pastor Guvener in Diyarbakir lives
not too far away from Malatya,
the site of the killing. He and his church's leaders were meeting to discuss
the day's business. They had just finished discussing fixing a clogged toilet
when their cell phones went off. Hearing the news, several leaders flashed back
to an incident three years ago when a deranged man, brandishing a knife, ran
into their church.
The pastors remembered how one of the Malatya martyrs, Necati Aydin, had recently
portrayed Jesus in a passion play. Later, at the memorial service at Ucal's
church in Istanbul,
everyone wore a small picture of Aydin. The late pastor's son sang, "Jesus
Loves the Little Children."
Necati's smile keeps coming to mind. Guvener said, "You
should remember that God has wiped away the tears." Ucal says Jesus is
walking with the Turks. "We love without fear. Something protects this
country. Turkey
will keep its balance."