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Will MBS permit US evangelicals to build Saudi Arabia’s first church?

Hours-long meetings are said to have taken place between 2018 and 2020 between evangelical delegations and the crown prince in order to pave the ground for Christian worship in the cradle of Islam

News Service
14:54 - 9/02/2021 Tuesday
Update: 14:56 - 9/02/2021 Tuesday
Yeni Şafak
Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS)
Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS)

Debates over building the first church in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are continuing full-speed as evangelical delegations have repeatedly visited Riyadh over the years to get the greenlight from Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) for the controversial project.

According to a report by the Business Insider, an American lobby headed by Joel Rosenberg, one of America’s prominent evangelist authors, has long been pushing for the first church to be built in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam, as Washington tries to persuade MBS to relax the country’s laws that prohibit the building of Christian houses of worship in the Gulf monarchy.

Hours-long meetings are said to have taken place between 2018 and 2020 between evangelical delegations and the crown prince in order to pave the ground for Christian worship in the cradle of Islam.

"Not now," MBS allegedly said, according to Rosenberg, who spoke to Israel's i24News.

The presumed location of the church to be built is said to be the diplomatic quarter of the capital Riyadh or the new mega-city Neom, according to a Saudi academic cited in the Business Insider report.

Neom is a planned cross-border city in the Tabuk Province of northwestern Saudi Arabia. It is planned to be a “zero carbon” city that incorporates smart city technologies and also functions as a tourist destination. The project has an estimated cost of $500 billion and is due to be completed in 2025.

“A church is coming for Saudi Arabia, experts are sure, but the timeline is unclear,” the report concludes.

Saudi Arabia reportedly has 1.4 million Christian citizens, most of them residing in Riyadh; however, churches are banned in the Kingdom, in addition to the public practice of any form of religion other than Islam.

#Saudi Arabia
#Church
3 years ago