RSS Feed
H/T to Logan for the story of Canon Andrew White. He sat down for an interview with Scott Pelley. The left is having a field day with this..”See the surge didn’t work”, but if you follow the links, the interview doesn’t pass the smell test:
“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.
Let’s go back a year to an interview with him:
There were churches [in Iraq] bombed this last weekend [January 28-29, 2006], including my church as well. And I have had four of my lay leaders probably killed in the past few months. They disappeared on the 12th of September, and I haven’t seen them since. But the real issue is that all religious communities are under pressure and have to deal with increased violence. The greatest number of attacks have actually been on Shia mosques, and the only reason there has not been a war between Shia and Sunni is that Ayatollah Ali Sistani has really tried very hard to prevent the Shia from reacting. But all of the religious communities are under increased pressures — Sunni, Christian, Shia, and Kurdish.
Our church [St. George’s Memorial Church in Baghdad] was reopened after the war, and we thought initially predominantly it would be a church for the expatriate congregations. But the congregation has grown very rapidly. It’s now over 800 in number and there are no Anglicans there, apart from a little baby I baptized the other day, named after me and the bishop. So there are two Anglicans in Iraq, both of them named Andrew. But the sad fact is that the church and most of its members that are not Anglican are coming because they are too afraid to travel to their own churches, which may be over a mile away. That distance to travel has become increasingly dangerous. The bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf who covers Iraq has said very clearly that he hopes that eventually people will go back to their own churches. But we don’t have that happening yet or any chance of that happening. The congregations are all Iraqi, apart from the congregation in the International Zone, which is almost exclusively American, with just a few English.
Not surprisingly, White’s apparent closeness to the Saddam regime meant he was criticised in the West as a dupe, a stooge for an evil regime.
He admits now that his critics had a point: “Initially I was naïve in my assessment of what was happening. The atmosphere of oppression was obvious from the start. The Iraqi people were in a terrible state. But I didn’t quite appreciate just how evil the regime was and how they were using sanctions for their benefit. It took me a while to realise they were very, very bad people. But as I went back to Iraq on a regular basis and people started talking to me in private, I began to realise what was going on.”
Canon Andrew White: The Vicar of Baghdad Part 3- In this interview, from just last month, he does’t make it sound anything like he did on 60 Minutes..could it be that 60 Minutes got the results it wanted to show you?
Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, Mark My Words, third world county, Right Truth, DragonLady’s World, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Big Dog’s Weblog, Cao’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Chuck Adkins, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, and Adeline and Hazel, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
17 Responses to “60 Minutes: Christians Have Never Suffered Worse Than They Now Do In Iraq?”
TrackBack URL
Why would a secular left-wing news media be interested in chritians especialy the way they have potraied conservative christians who oppose SEX EDUCATION EVOLUTION,ENVIROMENTAL BRAINWASHING and REVIONISTS HISTORY
Scott Pelley is just another Dan Rather wannabe. There are of course Christians in the muslim world and they pay their tax to Islam and sometimes they die. I wonder how much 60 minutes paid him to give the interview.
Remember CBS is looking for an Environment Reporter. They’ll have a hard time finding a moonbat that looks credible.
Anything CBS touches is tainted by their moonbat bias.
Gallup confirms link between politics and sanity
But only between Republicans and Sanity. I found Van Helsing’s discovery very interesting. 1
According to Gallup, 2 there are more unstable democrats and independents than there are republicans. That might explain the unstable person who strap…
Does divorce cause global warming?
The arguments they come up with are amazing. Seriously.
clipped from www.moonbattery.com
Does Divorce Cause Global Warming?
Here’s news that will horrify Tinseltown glitterpigs, known for their 6-month marriages and righteous beli…
Teddy Bear Teacher Pardoned
Hooray for the UK government for bringing this absurdity to a quick end. TEDDY bear row teacher Gillian Gibbons has been pardoned by the Sudanese Government and was released this morning. She is now with British Embassy officials and will
[…] DragonLady’s World, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Stageleft, Right Voices, Church and State, AZAMATTEROFACT, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao’s […]
[…] world county, DragonLady’s World, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Stageleft, Right Voices, Church and State, AZAMATTEROFACT, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao’s Blog, Big Dog’s […]
[…] World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Stageleft, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven […]
All time low
Should we be surprised a 2008 Presidential candidate is attacking another candidate for what they said in kindergarten?
[…] world county, DragonLady’s World, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Stageleft, Church and State, AZAMATTEROFACT, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, […]
[…] world county, DragonLady’s World, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Stageleft, Church and State, AZAMATTEROFACT, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, […]
Tikrit Law School affiliates with Baltimore Law School
As I was reading the Press Releases from US CentCom, I came upon this article. I read it cautiously, yet eagerly. Yes, that is hard to do. lol. Let’s just say I am cautiously optimistic
Harry Reid is Out of Touch
…as if we didn’t already know.
When John Murtha levied criticism after criticism of the war and out troops the Democrats held him up as the voice to which we should pay attention because he is a veteran. Murtha served in the Marine Corps (they said…
U don havta’ speak no propa English! Speak ebonics, yo!
And spare me the “racism” charge.
If gang ba-nger suits are “cultural”, ya best re-examine your culture dude.
…
Baby Selling and Slavery
I find it curious that I’ve come to the end of this thread about the buying and selling of babies and nobody has mentioned the elephant in the room: Slavery. Given that slavery is a great moral evil, is there a way to buy and sell children that p…
[…] third world county, DragonLady’s World, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Stageleft, Church and State, AZAMATTEROFACT, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, The […]