by Steve Dew-Jones, Premier Christianity
As an internet blackout sweeps the country and thousands of protestors take to the streets, Steve Dew-Jones says it is about time the world’s media picks up on what is happening in Iran. Could it finally be time for change in the country with one of the world’s fastest growing Christian communities?
Iran is regularly cited as the place with the fastest growing Church in the world – albeit an underground one. Some people say it’s because Iranians have something within them that seems to make Christianity attractive. For one thing, many come from a Shia Muslim background, within which the concept of a coming saviour – in their case, Imam Mahdi – and even the person of Jesus (albeit only as a prophet) are already accepted theologies.
Another reason people cite is that many Iranians have grown tired of the ruling theocracy, in place for the past 47 years. Therefore they are looking for alternatives including, but not limited to, Christianity.
A 2020 study by GAMAAN, a secular Netherlands-based research institute, discovered that only a third of Iranians identified as Shia Muslims, despite Iran’s regime claiming that they make up 95 per cent of its population. Many respondents claimed to have no faith at all. Others said they were Zoroastrian. Some 1.5 per cent of respondents identified as Christian.
Given that there are now believed to be fewer than 100,000 members of the recognised Christian communities, largely of Armenian and Assyrian origin, still in the country – largely due to mass migration – researchers concluded that there may be 650,000-850,000 converts in Iran. Many evangelical Christian groups had previously estimated that the figure may even be in excess of 1 million. While it’s not possible to verify this, it certainly adds credence to the idea that Iran may indeed be the place where Christianity is growing the fastest.
For context, there were only a few hundred Christian converts in Iran when the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979. So whatever the precise figure today, the increase has been staggering – and has come despite decades of repression.