Almost no one would be surprised to learn that Evangelical support for the war in Iran is disproportionately high when compared to other segments of the U.S. population. According to a CNN/SRSS research poll from February 28th, 67% of white Evangelicals strongly support the U.S. and Israel trying to overthrow the Iranian government. The poll’s results are unsurprising because Evangelicals have generally supported most regime change wars in the Middle East since 9/11.
The majority of Americans, however, are opposed to U.S. military action against Iran. According to a national Quinnipiac University poll, taken one week after the start of the war, over half of the respondents (53%) said they are opposed U.S. military intervention in Iran. The CNN/SRSS poll has the number of opposed slightly higher at 59%.
That this war is waged on behalf of Israel is no secret.
What is most perplexing about the U.S. Evangelical support for this war is that Iran is home to one of the fastest growing Evangelical populations in the world. Estimates suggest there are as many as 1-2 million Christians in Iran. While many of these Christians are Evangelicals recently converted from Islam, there is a considerable number of native Christians from Armenian, Chaldean, and Assyrian backgrounds living in Iran.
It is impossible to predict exactly what the fate of these Christians will be amid the massive U.S.-Israel bombing campaign, but Evangelicals in America who support this war should give serious consideration to the real possibility that many of these Christians may be killed, wounded, or displaced.
And what about the Jews living in Iran today? Many Christian Zionists seem wholly unaware that Iran is home to the largest Jewish population in the entire Middle East outside of Israel. Some say the Jewish population in Iran is as few as 8 to 10 thousand while others say it could be upwards of 15 to 25 thousand. Many Jews living in Iran today can trace their lineage back 2,700 years to the exile in Persia, or to the Jewish diaspora after A.D. 70, making theirs one the world’s oldest Jewish communities.
What’s more, there are around 30 synagogues in Tehran, and more than 100 throughout Iran. Iran even reserves a seat in parliament exclusively for a Jewish representative.
After the combined U.S. and Israeli bombardments started, Iranian Jews gathered in one of their synagogues in Tehran and prayed for their country: not Israel, but Iran. This begs the question: Are the lives of the Jews in Iran somehow worth less than Jews in Israel? Will so-called smart bombs be able to avoid killing or wounding Iranian Jewish citizens?
Equally unknown to many is that Iran has an extremely diverse population. There are 91 different people groups living in Iran today. The majority population is 67% Persian, and according to the official numbers 90-95% are Shi’ite Muslims. Interestingly, however, only 32% percent self-identify as Shi’ites.
In fact, 22% of the population have no religious affiliation at all. Atheists account for almost 9% of all Iranians, Zoroastrians constitute nearly 8%, those who consider themselves generically spiritual about 7%, and agnostics almost 6%. The rest of the minority population consists of Sunni Muslims, Sufis, humanists, Christians, Baha’i, and Jewish adherents.
To be sure, the regime in Iran is brutal and oppressive, but changing the regime is no guarantee that the situation for Christians and other minorities will actually improve. In fact, it could get worse – much worse – as evidenced by the recent regime change war in Syria where Christians and other minorities are now being persecuted and killed.
What is more disturbing, however, is not only the potential fate of minorities in Iran, but the seeming lack of empathy among Americans in general, and Evangelicals in particular, for the wholesale slaughter of innocents in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza for the sole purpose of establishing regional hegemony for Israel.
Furthermore, if this war continues for the long term, especially if ground troops are deemed necessary, large numbers of U.S. soldiers, sailors, and marines may die or be permanently wounded – for nothing.
Alarmingly, this new era of AI-driven automated warfare is fostering a dangerous societal detachment from the brutality of war itself. Mass death on an industrialized scale has become normalized and accepted. The dehumanizing effect of this type of warfare on civilization is incalculable.
The Trump administrations latest mantra: “short term pain for long term gain” is just as likely to be “long term pain for no gain.”
The war against Iran, like all the other preemptive wars of choice, will likely result in little or no gain for America or Israel, and it will almost certainly cause tremendous pain to many of our allies in the Gulf region and beyond. What’s worse, it will undoubtably have the unintended consequence of benefiting both Russia and China. Indeed, it seems the war is already having this effect in Moscow and Beijing.
Given all of this, perhaps it’s time for the people of God to once again be the people of the seventh beatitude. After all, it’s the peacemakers – not the warmakers – who are called the children of God.
Jim Fitzgerald is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and a missionary in the Middle East and North Africa. His articles have appeared in American Greatness, American Thinker, Antiwar.com, and the Aquila Report.
