Though Jordan’s population is 95 percent Muslim, the country is also home to a rich and surprisingly diverse Christian community. I’ve wandered into a sparse Seventh-day Adventist church, which lacked any sign of holy icons; I’ve also visited an opulent Orthodox church with walls that are adorned with colorful mosaics and icons in gold-leafed frames. The sound of church bells and Arabic taranim (Christian hymns) mixes with the Islamic call to prayer. The expressions of Christian worship in Jordan are manifold, providing Jordanian Christians with countless opportunities to deepen their relationship with God.
My host mother—whose family comes from Karak, a town with a considerable Christian population—grew up Catholic. Her four children attend Catholic school, where my fourth-grade host brother is completing training for his first communion. Although they sometimes attend Mass, they more frequently worship at an evangelical church in our neighborhood.
One evening, my host mother and sisters talked to me about their choice to attend this new church and the responses they’d received from their Catholic community. “My friends told me not to go there, and that they’re crazy!” my host sister said. Their parish priest would also make condescending remarks about evangelical churches.
“What is crazy about this church?” my host mom said. “They explain the Bible and there is a lot of singing. And Catholic Mass can sometimes be boring.”
As a Catholic, I could immediately understand my host mom’s criticisms of Catholicism. With their focus on ritual and tradition, Catholics are often known for their poor knowledge of the Bible. And while the Mass offers an opportunity to elaborate on the daily scripture passage, priests’ sermons sometimes move away from the text. The music of the liturgy also tends to be more solemn, and worshippers often pray and express their praise through quiet reverence rather than loud, joyful singing. I could empathize with my host mom’s frustration—I too have shared similar criticisms in the past— and was upset to hear that my host family’s Catholic community seemed to be alienating them, instead of welcoming them and trying to meet their spiritual needs.
A few weeks later, I went with my family to their evangelical church. Although I couldn’t keep up with the pastor’s speedy Arabic, I could feel his passion as he spoke about the chosen Scripture passage. Music boomed from the speakers during the majority of the two-hour service, and women waved their hands and clapped. The differences between this service and the more formalized Catholic Mass were clearly apparent, and the “holes” my host mom found in Catholicism seemed to be filled here. She told me, “When I go to the Catholic Church, I feel empty. But here I feel happy. There is nothing between me and God.”
Having witnessed this “bridging” of Christian traditions in my own host family, I was curious if other Catholics in Amman were making a similar transition. According to my host mom, many Catholics have begun attending evangelical churches, usually making the switch because they felt more spiritually enriched at the evangelical church. Many families haven’t made a firm decision about their religious identity, but have one foot in Catholicism and one in Protestantism. Though my host mom feels more enriched by the evangelical church, she still wakes up early on weekends to take my host brother to his confirmation classes at the Catholic Church.
As Laura discussed in her article, the issue of many Ecuadorians’ conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism is well studied by scholars. Approximate numbers are known, and the reasons for conversion are somewhat clear. The same is not true in Jordan, where very little research has been done on the phenomenon. We lack the data necessary to gauge the trend’s pervasiveness in Jordan, as well as the personal interviews needed to clarify the reasons for conversion.
Whether the phenomenon I’ve seen in Amman’s Christian community is wide or limited, important questions must still be answered. Particularly, how can the Catholic Church in Amman better provide for the spiritual needs of its disenchanted members? I hope to begin answering questions like this one throughout the rest of my time in Jordan.
