Last year I conducted a Skype interview with one of the modern-day saints of the Middle East, Father Douglas Bazi, a Chaldean priest who endured nine days of captivity and torture after being kidnapped by Al Qaeda. I was startled at how surprisingly cheerful and relaxed he appeared as he related his harrowing experiences.
Father Bazi is one of the heroes of a new book that I highly recommend. It is “After Saturday Comes Sunday,” by Elizabeth Kendal. The sub-title sums up its message: “Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East.”
Some of the stories in the book tell the traumatic experiences of individuals such as Father Bazi.
Kendal writes: “Bazi is fed up with Western elites who insist that all the Middle East needs is political and economic liberalization. He is furious that despite having no understanding or practical experience of Islam, they will insist that Islam is inherently peaceful, arrogantly believing they know Islam better than he does.
“’We are in pain,’ says Bazi. ‘I am angry because I know Islam well. In Baghdad they blew up my church. I drove by three bombings, and twice my car was destroyed. I got shot in my leg by an AK-47 – by Islam, and they kidnapped me for nine days.’”
This is a driving theme of the book – that the West does not truly understand the tragedy that is the Middle East. And I can think of few writers better able to explain the history of the crisis to us than Kendal, one of the finest commentators writing today about Christian persecution.
I especially value the regular Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin emails that she sends free to anyone who subscribes. In fact, she actually lives here in Australia, in my city of Melbourne (although we have never met), where she is Adjunct Research Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Islam and Other Faiths at the Melbourne School of Theology.
The book’s title is, says Kendal, “a popular Arabic war cry which never fails to make the blood of Middle Eastern Christians run cold….As sure as Saturday (the day of Jewish worship) is followed by Sunday (the day of Christian worship), first we’ll kill the Jews, then we’ll kill the Christians.”
And so much of the book recounts – often in unsparing detail – the horrific “Sundays” endured by Middle Eastern Christians over the past few years as their traditional homelands have come under waves of attacks from an enemy intent on genocide.
But – spoiler alert! – “After Saturday” can have another meaning. Think back to the crucifixion. On Saturday the disciples were in despair. Their Saviour had been executed. Their dreams were crushed. Yet on Sunday came the most joyous news ever heard by humankind. Jesus had risen again.
And so it is today in the Middle East. Amidst the genocide we see the buds of hope. In her final chapter Kendal shows how God is at work right across the Middle East, drawing people to Jesus in spectacular fashion. As persecution intensifies it seems that the number of believers grows.
This book is not always easy to read. The horrors it describes are real, and are happening today, to our Christian brothers and sisters. Yet it is ultimately a book about God and about the Christian hope. Every Christian will feel inspired from reading it.
