Marines dispense Gospel coins to Iraqis

FALLUJAH, Iraq – At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah on Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.

Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. “Where will you spend eternity?” it asked.

He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16.”

“They are trying to convert us to Christianity,” said Anad, a Sunni Muslim like most residents of this city in Anbar province. At home, he told his story, and his relatives echoed their disapproval: They’d been given the coins too, he said.

Fallujah, the scene of a bloody U.S. offensive against Sunni insurgents in 2004, has calmed and grown less hostile to American troops since residents turned against al-Qaida in Iraq, which had tried to force its brand of Islamist extremism on the population.

Now residents of the city are abuzz that some Americans whom they consider occupiers are also acting as Christian missionaries. Residents said some Marines at the western entrance to their city have been passing out the coins for two days in what they call a “humiliating” attempt to convert them to Christianity.

In the markets, people crowded around men with the coins, passing them to each other and asking in surprise, “Have you seen this?”

The head of the Sunni endowment in Fallujah, the organization that oversees Sunni places of worship and other religious establishments, demanded that the Marines stop.

“This can cause strife between the Iraqis and especially between Muslim and Christians,” said Sheikh Mohammed Amin Abdel Hadi.

“Iraq is investigating a report that U.S. military personnel in Fallujah handed-out material that is religious and evangelical in nature,” Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a U.S. military spokesman, wrote in an e-mailed statement. “Local commanders are investigating since the military prohibits proselytizing any religion, faith or practices.”

The controversy over the coins comes on the heels of a tempest triggered by a U.S. sniper who used the Quran, Islam’s holy book, for target practice. The sniper was pulled out of Iraq after tribal leaders on May 9 found a Quran with 14 bullet holes and graffiti on the pages.