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Is the Gateway to Asia Opening or Closing? 

Those of us who live in a country that separates religion and politics have a hard time realizing how tangled those two can become elsewhere and how their entanglement can block the gospel. A case in point is Turkey, with a larger population than Great Britain, France, or Italy.

Curiously the least reached of the 40 places on yesterday’s list was Istanbul, Turkey. Paul himself planted the church all over what is now Turkey. Centuries later Istanbul became the center of global Christian power and Christian thought. How can a Christian heartland become a Christian wasteland? 

Christianity was the faith of two hated ethnic minorities in Turkey (Greeks and Armenians). Ethnic cleansing by the Ottoman Turks (Muslims) led to over a million Armenian deaths in a single year, 1915. 

Modern Turkey was founded in 1923 to transform Turkey from a Muslim empire into a secular state. Many un-Islamic changes were made, but Christianity never rebounded. Turkey is not unreached today because people have never heard of Jesus. It is unreached because they have heard of Him a lot, but always as the god of some other ethnic group that Turks hate. To follow Jesus is considered un-Turkish or even anti-Turkish.

Turkey is especially unstable now due to the massive government reaction to the coup attempt of 2016, the presence of over two million refugees from neighboring Syria, and the problem of the Kurdish minority. This is a poisonous atmosphere for any kind of religious change by any Turkish citizen, especially since the government is drifting back in a Muslim direction.

And yet, by the mercy of God, this very atmosphere may bring disillusioned people to look in new directions that were unthinkable for generations, and to rediscover Jesus. It is happening in Iran. There are tiny signs that it is starting to happen in Turkey. Pray hard!

Personal Reflection: 
• Like the Turks, many other unreached people groups see Jesus as a foreign god. 

Prayer: 
• We praise you, God Almighty, for the crack in the door in recent years, the light getting through to a few Turks. May more of it pour in.
• Lord, open the eyes of Turks to see that they can become followers of Jesus without becoming foreigners. Help them show their countrymen that this impossibility is possible after all.