An Evangelical church in Sweden wants to use drones to drop thousands of electronic bibles over parts of Iraq controlled by Islamic State.
The Word of Life (Livets Ord) group says it wants to spread a message of hope to “closed” areas of the Middle East.
Announcing the plan on Instagram last week, Senior Pastor Joakim Lundqvist said the church would use “military drones, three meters wide” to drop the bibles.
“Let’s pray the message of God’s love in Christ will conquer that of darkness and hate!” he added.
A photo posted by Joakim Lundqvist (@joakiml) on Jul 30, 2016 at 4:36pm PDT
Christian Åkerhielm, the church’s mission director, told SVT: “The Bibles are the size of pill boxes and have a display. They require no electricity, but work on their own.”
He said the church hopes to begin the drop in the autumn, however they will not be conducting the operation themselves. Instead, they will use an unnamed group already operating in the area.
Mr Åkerhielm added that he felt inspired after hearing how Christians had smuggled bibles into the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and has long desired to do the same in places in need today.
The church says on its website that the bible drop is not an “attack” on Islamic State, but rather: “Our ambition is to pass on the hope and love that can fit in the Christian gospel to a population living in closed areas where human rights are denied it.”
“The contacts, congregations and organizations we work with testify unanimously on a huge spiritual awakening in the Middle East, where millions of people are turning to the Christian faith, and the need and demand for bibles is huge.”
Livets Ord is one of the biggest Evangelical charismatic churches in Sweden. It was founded in 1983 by Pastor Ulf Ekman and has sent missionaries to countries such as Russia, Afghanistan, Israel and India, as well as running bible schools.