The church in Baghdad
This Sunday we had a visit to our church from Barnabas Fund’s Patrick Sookhdeo, who spoke graphically about violence and discrimination of christians in Iraq, and about the threatening ideology of Islam against christianity.
And I felt rather unneasy, but not for the reasons he wanted. I am told that he is apparently an academic authority on jihadist ideology, and is a former muslim. But I still felt like I was not being given an objective and fair picture of either the violent actions or the motivation.
All I can really add is this article from the New York Times about the newly elevated Cardinal of Baghdad, Emmanuel III Delly. He is a prominent christian leader from Mosul in Iraq, and surely is worth hearing too:
“Christians and Muslims have lived together here for 1,400 years,” Cardinal Delly said in an interview. “We have much in common; in Iraq, the Christian house is next to the Muslim house.”
…
“I am not happy when people ask, ‘How is the situation for Christians?’” he said. “Those who kill don’t kill only Christians. They kill Muslims as well — the situation is the same for both.”
So it’s not that things aren’t terrible, but that it’s surely more complicated than ‘nasty muslims’ attacking ‘nice christians’.
