{"id":293661,"date":"2026-06-08T09:23:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christianchronicle.org\/?p=293661"},"modified":"2026-06-11T12:17:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T17:17:49","slug":"iranians-americans-worship-in-a-united-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianchronicle.org\/iranians-americans-worship-in-a-united-kingdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranians, Americans worship in a united kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND \u2014<\/span><\/strong> \u201cWhat if the regime wasn\u2019t there? What if we were still in Iran?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The questions seem to hang in the air, creating a lull in an hours-long dinner conversation. <\/span><\/p>\n

Three Iranians \u2014 a married couple, Iliya and Naghme, and a guy who goes by Fred \u2014 sit at a backyard picnic table in a suburb of Birmingham. They\u2019ve eaten their fill, but there are still plates full of grilled steak kebabs and sangak<\/em><\/a>, Iranian whole wheat flatbread. Plenty to take home.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A worker at an Iranian supermarket in Birmingham, England, prepares a to-go order of sangak.<\/p><\/div>\n

The conversation, in a mix of English and Farsi, roams from football to child-rearing to, inevitably, the war<\/a>. The Iranians share the latest phone apps they use to reach their families back home. The government keeps shutting down access to the outside world, so the refugees search constantly for new ways to connect, new lifelines. Their host, an American missionary, excuses himself to check on his kids, who are playing inside with the Iranians\u2019 children.<\/span><\/p>\n

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That\u2019s when Fred asks the \u201cwhat if\u201d questions.<\/span><\/p>\n

What if the Islamic Revolution of 1979<\/a> hadn\u2019t happened? There would have been no hostage crisis, no nuclear program, perhaps no decades of animosity between Iran and the West. No mass killings of dissidents. No wave of refugees flooding from the Middle East into Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

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