An eminent Anglican priest known as the “Vicar of Baghdad” has just presented two contrasting images of Christianity in Iraq.
First, in a Fox News interview on Tuesday, Canon Andrew White said Christianity is “over” in the region from which the faith originated.
However, on the same day, he posted a message on his Facebook page, saying, “God is not dead … despite the terrible persecution of much of the Church today in Iraq and the Middle East.”
White went on to say that God “is alive and doing the greatest things ever. Resurrections, healing and angels are part of daily life. We in the western world just do not know of the real majesty, glory and presence of Jesus.”
Read it all from Christian Today.
I am struggling for charity on this feast of the Annunciation.
These comments of Dr White amount to arrogance. There is no other word for it. First of all, he heads a tiny, largely expatriate congregation. This does not deny his courage. But his people by and large do not have deep roots in Iraq. Second, there are ancient Christian communities with whom, as it happens, I have links. I refer to the Syrian Catholics, the Chaldean Catholics, the Syrian Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East. They would claim a history going back two millenia. I know that they intend to rebuild life in Christian towns such as Qaraquosh that were devastated by ISIS.
How can this man, an Englishman, speak for the large indigenous Christian communities of Iraq? How does he have the chutzpah? Can they not speak for themselves?
If he is concerned for the future of Christianity, perhaps he would take up with the UK government its recent insulting refusal of visas to three bishops who wanted to come to London for the consecration of the Syrian Orthodox cathedral there.
I apologise for the word arrogance above and I withdraw it. Generally it is arrogant people who accuse others of arrogance so I ought not to have said this. Let me say instead that these comments of his are neither wise nor helpful.
Thank you, Terry Tee, for mentioning not only the Catholic groups but also the Orthodox and Assyrians, who have been in the Near East since apostolic times or shortly thereafter.