Wednesday, January 3, 2018

What No One Is Telling You About Iran


A building on fire is seen in Dorud, Iran, in this still image taken from video on December 31, 2017.
A building on fire is seen in Dorud, Iran, in this still image taken from video on Dec. 31, 2017. (IRINN/ReutersTV via REUTERS )
It's true that CNN and the New York Times, among other liberal outlets, have rightly been called out for their failure to report accurately on the protests in Iran. But there's something that not even the conservative media is telling you today, an important backstory that might be playing a role in this rising protest movement.
As for the left-wing media, Caroline Glick noted in her article in the Jerusalem Post that, "Given the earth shattering potential of the protests it is extraordinary to see the liberal media in the U.S. and Europe struggle to downplay their significance." And here in the U.S., "former members of the Obama administration and the liberal media have determinedly downplayed the importance of the protests."
Similarly, writing for the Daily Wire, Ryan Saavedra stated that, "The media initially ignored what was going on in Iran, likely because it reflected negatively on former President Barack Obama, whose Iran nuclear deal was supposed to help Iran's economy, and because the Trump administration's response was night-and-day better than Obama's response in 2009.
"CNN and The New York Times did a terrible job of covering the protests, while ABC News' Matthew Dowd declared that the U.S. did not have the moral authority to talk about Iran because 'we' don't talk about Russia."
So, again, the liberal media has been taken to task for its unfair coverage of the Iranian protests, and rightly so. In fact, it would be hard to find a greater contrast than that between the courageous protesters and the cowardly media.
But there's something else going on in Iran that could well be playing an important role in the rising Iranian discontent.
It's something that has been building and growing under the surface and behind closed doors. And it remains one of the best -kept secrets in the world, despite occasional media reports in the last few years: Iranian Muslims are converting to Christianity at an unprecedented pace, perhaps by the thousands every day.
I've heard this firsthand from Iranian converts. I've heard it firsthand from Christian leaders who have worked with these converts inside and outside of Iran. And I've heard it from missiologists whose job it is to track such things.
And it's reminiscent of the conversion of tens of millions of Chinese behind the cover of the Bamboo Curtain. Missiologists were reporting it for years before the rest of the world found out about it. Now, it is an open secret, leading to headlines like this, from April 14, 2014, in the UK Telegraph: "China on course to become 'world's most Christian nation' within 15 years. The number of Christians in Communist China is growing so steadily that it by 2030 it could have more churchgoers than America."
When it comes to Iran, already in 2006, Reza Safa could write a book titled The Coming Fall of Islam in Iran: Thousands of Muslims Find Christ in the Midst of Persecution.
The website of Safa, himself a former Iranian, Shiite Muslim but now an evangelical pastor, declares, "Despite severe persecution by the Iranian government against underground churches, God's Word is spreading like a wildfire all over Iran. Pastor Safa believes that Iran will be the first Islamic nation to convert to Christianity."

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