Self-Loathing and Evangelical Christianity

The Case of the Sabu Mandeans

Above: A young Iraqi Sabaean Mandean wears an ornimental symbol of peace called in Arabic, the 'Yas' plant before being baptised in the Tigris river, in Baghdad, Iraq. Hundreds of Iraqi Sabaean Mandeans -- an ancient religious sect that views the Bible's John the Baptist as savior -- come to submerge themselves in the Tigris river, as water is central to the Sabaean Mandeans' faith. They are celebrating the eve of their first New Year since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

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As Evangelical Christians, intertwined by their leadership with Bush's foreign policy, are drawn ever closer to the origins of their faith, they have discovered the descendents of the original Apostles in places like Nazareth and Bethlehem (who have carried the faith down to the present without any of the distortions which might have arisen in the enforced homogeneity and tortured history for centuries, among the European churches), of those who followed John the Baptist along the Jordan and who long ago were forced to flee to the Euphrates, and of small pockets who even today still speak Aramaic, the language of Christ (Hebrew was a dead language before Christ was born) in Syria and Iraq. 

To the dismay of the Evangelicals, they have found that all, in every case, are "Arabs", and have shared the fate of other Arabs. 

An Iraqi Sabaean Maendean woman is baptised in the Tigris River, in Baghdad, Iraq. Hundreds of Iraqi Sabaean Mandeans -- an ancient religious sect that views the Bible's John the Baptist as savior--submerge themselves in the Tigris in an annual ritual. They were celebrating the eve of their first New Year since the fall of Saddam Hussein

Evangelical leaders have found these people and their experiences alien to themselves and their own, and have failed utterly in recognizing their own forbears, preferring instead the company of Israelis whose rulers spring like themselves from Europe rather than from among a nation which yet contains shepherds and olive orchardists, despite the manger-hype at Christmas and the annointment rituals. 

Evangelical leaders have consequently joined in a bizarre set of denials which speak of self-loathing, and have allied themselves and their congregations to the Israelis in a seeming determination to wipe from the earth all remaining traces of the faith's  founder and of His apostles. The myths are preferred to the concrete, the false to the real, the lie to truth. Evangelical Christianity, under its current leadership, connection to Jesus is as remote from reality as is the Promised Land and all traces must be eradicated if the tenuousness of the connection is not to be exposed.

Hundreds of Iraqi Sabaean Maendeans--an ancient religious sect that views the Bible's John the Baptist as savior--come to submerge themselves in the Tigris River, as water is central to the Sabaean Mandeans' faith.

Most recently, the disconcertment of the evagelicals' leadership has been thrown into sharp relief by the Sabaean Maendeans, the descendents of those who accompanied John the Baptist in the desert - and they are as mystical as their ancestors - where he baptised Jesus. 

Iraqi Sabaean Mandean men pray and read scriptures after being baptised in the Tigris River.

Recognised in the Koran as one of the 4 "Peoples of the Book", alongside Moslems, Christians, and Jews, the Sabuans - like all religions in the Middle East - have seen their fortunes ebb and wane over centuries.

Under the secular regime of Saddam Hussein, the Sabuans were protected insofar as any group was protected, and in fact the government provided funds for their primary temple. Under the Evangelical regime of George Bush, they have been marginalised, lumped together with other Iraqis (except for those who spent the past 30 years in London and constitute Bush's "Iraqi Council"). The fondest wish of the Evangelical leadership is that the Sabaeans simply "go away", and a failure to do so may mean they will share the fate of the descendents of the Apostles in Palestine: death and exile, at the hands of Evangelical leaders or their agents.

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