By Abdul Masih –
Within the next 20 days, something dramatic, like a regime change, will happen in Iran, says a Persian immigrant who has ministered to Iranians inside and outside the country for 40 years.
How will that affect the Gospel? There will probably be a rush of missionaries, but the enthusiasm will die in two years, just like happened in Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed, says Shahrokh (who goes by Shah) Afshar, 75, who lives in South Carolina.
On June 13, Israel started attacking Iran’s nuclear program, military and police installations and the very Islamic regime that has oppressed everyday Iranians and sponsored terror all over the Middle East.
Up until now, Iran has had a flourishing underground Christian church – the fastest growing church in the world, Afshar says. He worries that the church’s growth in Iran may actually slow down after a regime change.
“How many are running away from Islam?” Afshar says. “A lot are just fed up with Islam. Once Islam is gone away, will they stay true to Jesus?”
Why? Because part of the attraction of coming to Christ in Iran is the thrill of being subversive to the regime.
As an example, he cites a church he helped in France that had 40 Iranian refugees asking for baptism. But once they got baptized, they claimed life-threatening danger of returning to Iran at the asylum office. Once they legalized their residence, 90% of them disappeared from the church. They used the church for their own purposes.
Once they taste the comforts of secular society, many hearts will grow cold, Afshar predicts.
Afshar leads an online zoom church of Iranian refugees from six countries.
When the Ayatollah seized power in 1978, he imposed a strict sharia law on its citizens that included frequent hangings and beheading for minor offenses. It also featured a hostile big to take over through Islam, especially an attempt to annihilate Israel.
Israel named its military attack “Operation Rising Lion,” an apparent allusion to the old Iranian flag that featured a rising sun next to a lion. It hints at regime change, and the IDF has targeted senior military officials for assassination.
Meanwhile in exile in Paris, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has called upon Iranians to flood the streets with mass demonstrations to overturn the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which many see as teetering on the brink.
Pahlavi is the eldest son of the deposed Shah of Iran and heir to the throne, but he says he wishes only to oversee a transition to democracy.
There are great ironies. For 40 years, the IRGC instructed children to chant “Death to Israel!” Now those schoolchildren have grown up and are cheering the planes bombing the military target inside their nation.
A friend texted Afshar: Who would have ever thought that Israel would be the patron Saint of Iran?
Afshar texted back: Who would have ever thought that Cyrus the Great would be the Messiah for Israel?
(Cyrus was the Persian emperor who granted the Israelites return to their native land to rebuild. There has always been a great cooperation between Israel and Iran – until the IRGC came in and implemented the evilest interpretation of the Koran.)
Afshar cautions against implanting the American church in Iran. What is needed is a church contextualized for Iran, he says.
“The way we’re doing church in America is causing the church to die. We have to change the way we are doing things,” Afshar says. “If we are going to rush to Iran taking the same stuff with us, please don’t. We don’t need a Western Christianity in Iran. We need a Christianity contextualized to Iran.”
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