Turkey and Christianity

The papel visit to Turkey has cast light on the plight of Christians in that ancient land. Christians in Turkey are prohibited from many basic rights such as owning property. I was recently reading about the conversion of a Turkish Muslim to Christianity named Mustafa. Mustafa's story is fully of irony. For instance he is called by his Turkish newspaper to write a column about how the Christians in Turkey are tied to terrorism. If you read Mustafa's story you will better understand the large obstacles to anyone who would contemplate becoming a Christian even within a moderate Islamic country.

Today, I saw the following statistics today on Christians in Turkey from the Associated Press within one of their articles on the papal visit.

"Of Turkey's 70 million people, some 65,000 are Armenian Orthodox Christians, 20,000 are Roman Catholic and 3,500 are Protestant, mostly converts from Islam."

What caught me eye was the last phrase, "mostly converts from Islam". This seems to indidicate that over 3% of the Christians in Turkey are converts from Islam. Under the circumstances, this is a pretty high number. When you read about the courage of these converts it makes me feel ashamed of the easy life lead by many Christians in the US including me. I wonder how many Americans would be Christians under the same conditions as our Turkish brothers?

The words below were given by the Lord to the church in Laodicea which today lies in Turkey.

"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Revelations 3:17-20)