St. George Anglican in Iraq

IRAQ: St. George's Anglican Church damaged in deadly bomb attack

By ENS staff, October 27, 2009

[Episcopal News Service] Two major suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad on Sunday, Oct. 25, caused serious damage to St. George's Anglican Church and left at least 150 dead and more than 600 injured on the streets outside.

When the coordinated car bombs exploded in downtown Baghdad at 10:30 a.m. the church was empty. "If the bomb had been just a few hours later, the glass from the windows would have ripped through the congregation causing terrible human damage," said the Rev. Canon Andrew White, vicar of St. George's, the only Anglican church in Iraq. The explosions damaged the church's clinic, bookshop, school rooms and the Mothers' Union buildings.

St. George's is the spiritual home to about 2,000 Christians. In an Oct. 27 email, White confirmed that none of St. George's members had been killed in the attacks although some had been injured. He estimates the damage to the church and its out-buildings to be in the region of $200,000.

"Some people ask us whether days like today make us want to give up. We have seen much of what we have worked for destroyed. We have seen people we love bereaved," White said in an Oct. 25 email. "But the truth is, it is days like today that remind us why our work in Iraq is absolutely essential.

"We must continue to provide a place of worship for Iraqi Christians. We must continue to treat the medical needs of Iraqi civilians. And we must continue to engage with the senior religious leaders from across the sectarian divides, working with them to challenge the belief systems that lie behind this terrible slaughter."

Much of the equipment at the clinic was destroyed in the blasts, "placing it permanently out of reach of the Iraqi people who need it so desperately," said White. The clinic provides free medical and dental treatment to people in Iraq, regardless of their religious or ethnic background, and is staffed by a team of medics representing each of the Abrahamic faiths, said White.

"Today was a terrible day for us. But even in the blood and trauma and turmoil, there are things for which we can, and indeed must, praise our God," said White. "The carnage was terrible, but it could have been even worse."

White said that a storm on Saturday had caused a large tree to fall outside the church, "which prevented the suicide bomber from detonating his explosives where they would have caused maximum damage."

Known as the "vicar of Baghdad," White is president of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, an organization that promotes interfaith relations in the Middle East.

Information on how to donate to St. George's is available here.

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Happy 4th! Remember to honk.

Opinion: Truly supporting our troops

By Miguel De La Torre

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Miguel De La Torre (ABP) -- Regardless of one’s feelings about the war in Iraq, it is important to provide support to the young men and women who put their lives on the line in obedience to their country’s call. One such man that deserves our support is Marine Staff Sergeant Eric Alva, a native of San Antonio who joined the Corps in 1989 when he was only 19 years old. When the current war in Iraq started, his unit was among the first to be deployed. Alva holds the distinction of being the first U.S. solider wounded in the conflict. On March 21, 2003, while traveling in a convoy to Basra with his battalion, he stepped on a land mine. The explosion broke his right arm and damaged his leg so badly that it had to be amputated. For his valor and sacrifice, Alva was awarded the Purple Heart. Even those of us who opposed the war from its beginning must honor Alva as a military hero. After his discharge from the Marines, he finished a bachelor’s degree in social work and is presently studying for his masters. Alva now lives in San Antonio with his partner, Darrell. Oh -- did I mention that Alva is gay? But then again, should it matter? After all, in Iraq and other wars, gay blood flowed on the battlefield just like straight blood. The sacrifice made by gays to protect your freedoms is no more or no less significant than the sacrifice made by straights. Why, then, should it matter if the first solider to be wounded in Iraq is gay or straight? It shouldn’t, but it does -- because of the sin of imposing our heterosexual orientation on our gay sisters and brothers. I know that there are Christians who interpret the Bible as condemning same-gender relationships. I once also held that view; I no longer do. I am a recovering heterosexist. We who are Christians can surely engage in a lively intramural debate over this issue. However, such religious debates do not belong in the realm of public policy in a pluralistic society, especially if the religious view of the few but powerful is forced upon the many who disagree. Alva served his country with distinction and paid a high price. Do those who have not paid such a price -- especially those who haven’t served in combat -- have a right to force their religious views on those who have? Many have bumper stickers on their cars that say “Support the Troops.” Do you really want to support the troops? Then support their wounded. Support Alva and the approximately 65,000 gays, lesbians, and bisexuals (according to a recent Urban Institute report) currently serving the United States in uniform. Write to your members of Congress and demand that the ban on gays openly serving in our military be repealed. The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy currently in place forces gay and lesbian soldiers to bear false witness against themselves. To risk their lives in the service of their country, they must lie about who they are and how God created them. We Christians should be against all forms of deception, and yet, in an attempt to impose mandatory heterosexuality, we force many of our men and women in uniform to deceive their fellow soldiers. Besides the immorality of forcing our troops to lie, the present policy is placing them and our nation in greater peril. Since the policy was enacted in 1993, almost 800 specialists with critical skills needed for the defense of the homeland have been fired, of whom 323 are linguists -- 55 of them Arabic experts. Think of the backlog of thousands of documents that cannot be translated -- documents that, conceivably, could save American lives -- because we are more concerned with whom a soldier loves than we are with his or her ability to do their job. Honesty in the military is something most Americans want. A 2008 Washington Post/ABC News poll showed 75 percent of Americans in favor of open service by gays in our military. Among those who are actually fighting in the war, three out of four soldiers (according to a 2006 study conducted by Zogby International and the Michael D. Palm Center) are comfortable with the idea. Every published Pentagon study on the issue since 1993 has concluded that no special restrictions on gay personnel should exist. Besides, gays already serve openly in the FBI, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Secret Service. Why not the military? Because a small but politically powerful group is forcing their religious beliefs on all Americans. If they feel that homosexuality is wrong, then by all means, they have the right and freedom not to engage in homosexuality. But what is wrong -- what is immoral -- is for them to force their religious views upon a pluralistic society that does not share them. Next time you think about gays in the military, think about Eric Alva. Next time you want to want to deny gays and lesbians their civil rights, think of price he paid for your rights and freedoms. Do the right thing -- repeal discrimination, repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” -30- Miguel De La Torre is associate professor of social ethics at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver. EDITORIAL DISCLAIMER: As part of our mission to provide credible and compelling information about matters of faith, Associated Baptist Press actively seeks a diversity of viewpoints in its columns, commentaries and other opinion-based content. Opinions expressed in these articles are not intended to represent ABP editorial policy and do not necessarily reflect the views of ABP's staff, board of directors or supporters. Comments (2) Subscribe to this comment's feed

Advent or Exit for Iraq's Christians ?

Yesterday was the first day of Advent. This is a story I saw on the first day of a time of hope and waiting in the church.
The old Chaldean Catholic priest was hopeful, but he hoped in vain. What we as the United States of America under President George W. Bush have done to the Christian community in Iraq is shameful and not Christian. What we have done to Iraq is not Christian.
Some people have said it is Scott Pelley's goal in life to continually discredit George W. Bush and his administration. It is an old ploy to attack the messenger and divert attention from the message.
Read the article below. Listen to what the Christians of Iraq are saying and not to Scott Pelley's questions.


Vicar: Dire Times for Iraqi Christians

Dec. 2, 2007(CBS) From the time of Jesus, there have been Christians in what is now Iraq. The Christian community took root there after the Apostle Thomas headed east.

But now, after nearly 2,000 years, Iraqi Christians are being hunted, murdered and forced to flee -- persecuted on a biblical scale in Iraq's religious civil war. You'd have to be mad to hold a Christian service in Iraq today, but if you must, then the vicar of Baghdad is your man. He's the Reverend Canon Andrew White, an Anglican chaplain who suffers from multiple sclerosis and from a fanatical determination to save the last Iraqi Christians from the purge.

White invited 60 Minutes cameras and correspondent Scott Pelley to an underground Baghdad church service for what's left of his congregation. White's parishioners are risking their lives to celebrate their faith.

"The room is full of children, it’s full of women, but I don’t see the men. Where are they?" Pelley remarked.

"They are mainly killed. Some are kidnapped. Some are killed. In the last six months things have got particularly bad for the Christians. Here in this church, all of my leadership were originally taken and killed," White explained. "All dead. But we never got their bodies back. This is one of the problems. I regularly do funerals here but it's not easy to get the bodies."

Many Iraqi Christians' churches are destroyed or abandoned. The congregation is smuggled in and out of this secret sanctuary. Even letting 60 Minutes come to the service was a terrible risk. White is among the last Christian ministers here, a savior with crosses to bear. Larger than life, stricken with MS, and by his own reckoning, driven a little bit mad.

He was first sent to Baghdad by the Archbishop of Canterbury nine years ago, well before the Christian persecution.

"You were here during Saddam’s reign. And now after. Which was better? Which was worse?" Pelley asked.

"The situation now is clearly worse” than under Saddam, White replied.

"There’s no comparison between Iraq now and then," he told Pelley. "Things are the most difficult they have ever been for Christians. Probably ever in history. They’ve never known it like now."

"Wait a minute, Christians have been here for 2,000 years," Pelley remarked.

"Yes," White said.

"And it’s now the worst it has ever been," Pelley replied.

To understand the history of Iraqi Christianity, start with the Last Supper. One saint to the right of Jesus is the Apostle Thomas, who took the gospel and headed east after the death of Christ. ,

In modern times, under Saddam, Christians were treated much the same as Muslims; Saddam's right hand man, Tariq Aziz, was Christian.

Before the war, it's estimated there were about a million Christians in Iraq. They were a small minority, but free to worship, free to build churches, and free to speak the ancient language of Jesus, Aramaic. But, after the invasion, Muslim militants launched a war on each other and the cross.

On Sunday, Aug. 1, 2004, five churches were bombed. The Iraqi Christian community, which had survived invasions by Mongols and Turks, was driven out under American occupation. No one can be sure, but Canon White estimates most of Iraq's Christians have fled or been killed. Those still here are too old, too ill or too poor to run.

"Why are you feeding them all?" Pelley asked.

"Because, this is the only decent meal they’ll have in the week," White explained. "They can’t afford food. So we're just moving from every other week to every week because they've got nothing."

Nothing for many, not even their families. The 60 Minutes team was confronted with one of many stories of depravity as the congregation left.

"Outside the church service this gentleman put these pictures in my hand. I can't show you the pictures. They’re just too much. They’re pictures of his children. His daughter who was 15 years old. And his son who was about four years old. They've both been shot in the head," Pelley said.

His children were killed, the father said, because he ran a liquor store. Liquor stores are typically Christian businesses here, legal, except under the Islamic street justice that rules since the invasion.

"So I hear stories of shootings, death, torturing, kidnapping, mutilation. I hear it all," White told Pelley.

The people with those stories once lived in a neighborhood called Dora, where Christians, Sunnis, and Shiites had lived together. 60 Minutes wanted to see what happened there so, we took a ride with U.S. Army Colonel Rick Gibbs. His men picked Pelley and the team up under a rusting relic of Saddam's tyranny, a parade archway made of two enormous swords, and from there they headed to ethnic cleansing's "ground zero."

"We have 13 churches. None of them are operational," Col. Gibbs said.

Asked if this was the worst neighborhood in town, Gibbs said, "It’s the toughest neighborhood in town."

Gibbs commands the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Riley, Kan. In Dora, he set up a combat outpost in an abandoned Catholic seminary.

"I was at a secret church service yesterday. A man came up to me and handed me some photographs of his children. They’d been shot to death. Somebody had come by their house and murdered his children because they were Christians. What are you seeing?" Pelley asked Gibbs.

"I don't see a lot of that anymore. But when we first arrived we saw lots of that. We have 500 a month. That's what we were tracking," the colonel replied. "It would not surprise my soldiers to walk down a street on a patrol and see three or four bodies laying in the street with a bullet behind their head."

U.S. forces do not protect the churches. There's a hands-off policy for all religious sites and Gibbs says there's another reason.

"The Christians do not what us to guard the churches openly," he said.

Why wouldn't the Christians want Gibbs and his soldiers to protect the churches?

"They feel that if we are overtly protecting the churches that someone underground covertly will come in and murder the Christians because they’re collaborating with the U.S. forces," Gibbs explained.

There seems to be less violence now in part because of the surge of U.S. forces but also because the purge of Christians from Dora is largely complete. Gibbs says Islamic militants are on the run now.

"We hear that through our intelligence sources on the ground people telling us they’re running that’s how we knew to come down here with our next big fight to keep getting after them," Gibbs said, as shots could be heard in the background. "And that's what you hear over there is us in that fight trying to go get them."

60 Minutes wanted to see one church that had been destroyed but Gibbs couldn't take us there -- roadside bombs blocked the way. So he walked us over to a church next to his combat outpost. Because of the proximity, it hadn't been looted. In fact, it hadn't been touched by anyone for a very long time.

"This is one of the abandoned churches of Dora," Pelley remarked inside the church. "It looks like it was left suddenly and completely. There’s a fine coat of dust over everything in the church. It was all left just as it was. One of the reasons these churches have been abandoned is in this letter, a letter that went out to the neighborhoods of Dora about a year ago. It reads like this: 'To the Christian, we would like to inform you of the decision of the legal court of the Secret Islamic Army to notify you that this is the last and final threat. If you do not leave your home, your blood will be spilled.' And in case there was any chance that anyone would not get the message, the letter ends like this: 'You and your family will be killed.'"

Pelley talked to a young man, a Baghdad Christian, whose name we cannot use. He told Pelley that after the invasion, posters appeared near his home.

"They were like telling us that Christians were against Islam, that we're infidels, that women shouldn’t drive and a woman that doesn’t wear a scarf would get her head cut off," the man told Pelley. "And I thought, 'What, are we going back to the Middle Ages?'"

He told us his family began going to Mass in shifts. Asked why, he told Pelley, "If like the church gets bombed on like one of the Masses, so like half of the family will be there and half will be safe."

Ultimately, the church was bombed.

Asked what has become of the people he used to worship with in that church, the young man told Pelley, "I simply don’t know. A lot them are in Syria. I don’t know any of ‘em that stayed in Baghdad."

His family, unharmed, fled to neighboring Jordan. But most Christians ran north to Syria where they've filled a Damascus neighborhood. Knock on any door and you'll find a story.

"They threatened this young girl," one woman told 60 Minutes. "They want her to become a Muslim. The boy is in danger of being kidnapped. My other boy is in danger of being kidnapped because we’re Christians."

Another woman was on a bus outside Baghdad, when gunmen boarded and demanded to know her husband’s faith. "They told him, 'How come you have not embraced Islam yet?' He said, 'To each his own religion,'" she recalled.

"He told him 'I am a Christian.' He told him to get off the bus," a child added.

And they never saw him again. Christian refugees are now swept up in an exodus of historic proportions. The U.N. estimates more than four million Iraqis of all faiths are running from the war. The United States has promised to help, but so far about 2,000 Iraqis have been allowed into the U.S., less than one tenth of one percent of all the refugees.

Those who remain in Iraq are bound together by a particular kind of faith known only to those under siege.

Why is this happening?

"It's happening because religion has gone wrong," Canon White told Pelley. "And when religion goes wrong, it kills others."

"Some of your parishioners must ask you, 'Why is God allowing this to happen to us?'" Pelley asked.

"To them I say, 'God is with you and he is with me and I am with you and I'm not going away,'" White replied.

Produced By Shawn Efran and Philip Ittner
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