Disenchanted Iranians are turning to other faiths

FOR FATHER MANSOUR, Christianity in Iran has all the excitement of the persecuted early church. In homes across the country he delivers his sermons in code, calling Jesus “Jamsheed”. He leads songs of praise in silence. “We lip-synch because we can’t worship out loud,” he says. The risks are great: proselytisation is banned; dozens of missionaries have been jailed. But so too are the spiritual rewards. Local pastors report hundreds of secret churches attracting hundreds of thousands of worshippers. Evangelicals claim Christianity is growing faster in Iran than in any other country.The spiritual gap between Iran’s Shia ayatollahs and the people they rule is widening. The strictures of the theocracy and the doctrine of Shia supremacy alienate many. So growing numbers of Iranians seem to be leaving religion or experimenting with alternatives to Shiism. Christians, Zoroastrians and Bahais all report soaring interest. Leaders of other forms of Islam speak of popular revivals. “There’s a loyalty change,” says Yaser Mirdamadi, a Shia cleric in exile. “Iranians are turning to other religions because they no longer find satisfaction in the official faith.”