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A second consequence had to do with Rassam's own high Anglicanism. Rassam despised the evangelical branch of the Church, and he reacted with hostility when Mar Shimun informed him that American Presbyterians had a few years before planted a mission in Assyria. Rassam informed the patriarch "that there were among us zealous Christians who seemed to have read the Bible to invent new doctrines and rebel against the Church [rather] than to give them increase of wisdom and holiness." Sadly, this bickering between the English and Americans would mark the mission for years to come, and some Assyrian Christians exploited this division to obtain material assistance from both.

Though unintended, Rassam's mission had one other consequence—this one the most serious of all. The Assyrian church feared their Muslim neighbors, the Turks and Kurds—with good reason. In 1843, shortly after Rassam returned home, Kurds invaded Assyrian villages, killing some 10,000 Christians. Rassam's mission of friendship inspired hope among many Assyrians that Britain would protect them from any further assaults. But, as the decades rolled past, Britain would prove unreliable in this regard. In 1918, for example, the year Britain completed its occupation of Iraq, 15,000 Assyrian Christians died fleeing from Turkish troops toward British lines. And other tragedies would follow.

It's a sad truth that since the 1930s, more Assyrian Christians live outside the Middle East than inside Iraq. Britain's refusal to create an autonomous region for Assyrian Christians in Iraq in 1932 provoked Assyrians to clash with the new Iraqi army, resulting in yet another massacre. Years later, the patriarch would declare that this decision sealed "the doom of the most ancient church and nation in Christendom."

American and British Christians intent on bringing both compassion and Christianity to post-war Iraq would do well to remember the Assyrian church's precarious past—and encourage and aid their brothers and sisters rather than endanger them.

Steven Gertz is editorial coordinator of Christian History magazine. More Christian History, including a list of events that occurred this week in the church's past, is available at ChristianHistory.net.Subscriptions to the quarterly print magazine are also available.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

For a detailed study of the Anglican mission to the Assyrian church, see J. F. Coakley's The Church of the East and the Church of England (Clarendon Press, 1992).

Earlier Christian History Corner articles on Iraq include "Iraqi Christians' Path of Persecution" and "Iraq's Christians Caught in the Middle, Again"

For more coverage on the current conflict, commentary and thought on just war, or Christian debate, see our CTWar in Iraq archive. For relevant articles on the war from news agencies around the globe, see CT's updated war links page.

A downloadable Bible study on the implications of war with Iraq is available at CurrentIssuesBibleStudy.com. These unique Bible studies use articles from current issues of Christianity Today to prompt thought-provoking discussions in adult Sunday school classes or small groups.

Christian History Corner appears every Friday at ChristianityToday.com. Previous editions include:

The Goodness of Good Friday | An unhappy celebration—isn't that an oxymoron? (Apr. 17, 2003)

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April (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47