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Toronto Globe and Mail - Thousands of U.S. evangelical missionaries are about to travel to Iraq, saying they are bent on a "spiritual warfare" campaign to convert the country's Muslims to Christianity. Among the largest aid groups preparing to provide humanitarian assistance to Iraqs ravaged by the war are Christian charities based in the southern United States that make no secret of their desire to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and win over Muslim souls. The largest of these is the Southern Baptist Convention, an ardent supporter of the war as an opportunity to bring Christianity to the Middle East. It says it has 25,000 trained evangelists ready to enter Iraq. "That would (mean) a heart change would go on in that part of the world," Mark Liederbach of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary explained in a recent speech to the SBC. "That's what we need to be praying for." Such words have caused deep alarm among military and diplomatic authorities. Although Christian aid organizations have worked comfortably alongside secular groups in other conflicts, Muslims around the world are already suspicious of U.S. motives in Iraq. The worry is that missionaries could reinforce the widespread popular belief that the war is really a "clash of civilizations" between Christians and Muslims. Muslim groups say they believe the presence of evangelists is a sign that President Bush is trying to impose his own evangelical Christianity on Muslims. It does not help that Bush became a born-again Christian in the 1980s with the assistance of the Rev. Billy Graham, founder of the SBC. "Here we have an army invading Iraq, followed by a bunch of people who want to convert everyone to Christianity," said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on Islamic-American Relations. "How's that going to look in the Muslim world? And how's it going to look that this guy says Muslims are evil and he's the guy who works with the president?" Hooper was referring to Graham's son, Franklin, who runs the SBC. The younger Rev. Graham, who delivered the invocation at Bush's inauguration in 2001, has repeatedly gone on the record describing Islam as "wicked." Graham has recently been more tolerant of Islam, but he has made it clear that the conversion of Muslims to Christianity is a goal for his volunteers. In response to criticism, many Christian aid groups, including Graham's, have toned down the religious messages in their work. "We want to spread the message of Jesus Christ through outwork, by reaching out to people with humanitarian aid," said Sam Porter, disaster-relief director for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, the largest of the SBC aid groups. "We are not there to preach. We are on a predominantly humanitarian mission." Baptist families have been asked to put together "gift of love" food boxes designed to provide a month's worth of basic nourishment to a family of five. "Please do not place any additional items/literature inside the box," the families are told. Porter, who runs the program, explained that this is to prevent them from being seen as missionary packages. But on the outside of each box will be a label bearing an Arabic translation of John 1:17: "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Many evangelical aid workers are motivated by humanitarian desires, but their mission statement makes it clear that they are required to attempt conversions: "It is the duty of every child of God to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness undergirded by a Christian lifestyle, and by other methods in harmony with the gospel of Christ."
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