“Packed With Joyous People”: Christianity Today, American Foreign Policy, and Christians Abroad

The caption was fittingly ambivalent. In its September 1, 2003 issue, Christianity Today ran an article about Christians in Baghdad. The accompanying picture was cheery—three smiling Iraqi Christian children sat in a U.S. Army Jeep. Yet the caption belied the picture's simple happiness: "Smiles, For Now."  According to author Kevin Begos, Christians faced multiple challenges months after President Bush declared the U.S. mission “accomplished.” Crime was rampant, relations with the Muslim majority were unsettled, and religious liberty was not assured. The U.S. presence had brought both smiles and trouble.

        Transient smiles had another source. The children belonged to a church approved by the fallen regime and, amid the unsettled religious situation, new churches had emerged. Official churches worried that the new ones would antagonize Muslims and cause Christianity to “lose clout.”  Begos, however, glowingly described the independent churches as “packed with joyous people” and noted that “the word [of God] is spreading in ways unimaginable under Saddam.”

        Begos’s article showcases one significant way Christianity Today, U.S. evangelicalism’s so-called “flagship magazine,” approached foreign policy issues in the 1990s and early 2000s, namely, by focusing on Christians abroad. Using CT’s coverage of conflicts with Iraq and debates about Most-Favored Nation trading status for China, I argue that CT subtly challenged American foreign policy, even against the proclivities of its own readership. At the same time, the magazine created a privileged evangelical community within the worldwide church. CT’s focus on Christians abroad provided both an opportunity to critique American policy and to reinforce evangelical distinctives. Thus, the portrayal of Christians abroad was part of a larger identity-shaping project, one which sought to separate evangelical and American interests, and to emphasize the transnational nature of evangelicalism.