A Christian family living in Cairo recently flew out of the city for a visit to their home country. Before they even reached cruising altitude, they felt a physical heaviness lifting from them.
“We didn’t realize what kind of spiritual burden we live under there,” recalls a family member. “A load had been taken off of us.”
What is it about Cairo? Something heavier than the weight of age, the push of traffic or the choking mixture of sand, smog and heat that presses down upon its millions.
Some Christians believe Cairo labors under an ancient and massive weight of sin.
“When an individual sins, it opens the door, gives a foothold to the devil,” says a Christian worker who has studied the city’s long spiritual history. “Repeated, unrepentant sin builds strongholds in people’s lives that become barriers to the gospel.”
Christian workers have begun identifying corporate sins that have credited strongholds in Cairo- strongholds they believe are defended by the sort of demonic principalities the apostle Paul spoke about in 2 Corinthians 4 and 10 and Ephesians 6.
Five such corporate sins continue to influence Cairo and all Egypt, some workers contend. Three are so old that Moses confronted them: two have emerged in more “recent” centuries:
Idolatry: Idol worship persists to this day in materialism and cultural pride, and in the blind adoration of various Egyptian leaders in society, government and religious institutions.
Covenant with death: The veneration of shrines and graves and praying for the dead crosses religious boundaries, seeping into Egyptian Christian tradition.
Magic and witchcraft: Its practice continues in folk religion, the casting of spells, the “evil eye,” etc., cutting across all social and economic classes.
Oppression: Egypt’s subjugation by foreign conquerors began five centuries before Christ and lasted some 25 centuries. The cruelty persists today in social corruption, a rigid class system and harsh divisions between rich and poor.
Turning away from Christ: Egyptian Christmas represent a significant population to this day, but they have wandered in the margins of society for centuries- a fearful and often persecuted minority in the heartland of Islam.
(BP)
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