(Baghdad) Vicar: Dire Times For Iraq's Christians (Most Have Fled Or Been Killed)

[sabra]

Source: CBS News 60 Minutes

Tells 60 Minutes Most Of Iraq's Christians Have Fled Or Been Killed


(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."

...

"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.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/29/60minutes/main3553612.shtml

[NC_Nurse]

1. That report was so sad. Even worse, the complete lack of help

the U.S. is giving these refugees. Why aren't we taking more in?

[aquart]

2. Why aren't our Bush-supporting "Christians" demanding it?

Or don't their "family values" extend to other people's families? (Rhetorical. I know they don't.)

[regnaD kciN]

6. I'm sure they'd reply...

...that this guy's church is Anglican (Episcopal) and, hence, one of those liberal "mainstream" denominations that's doomed to die off because they aren't real Christians.

No joke -- one of the first moves of the fundie establishment after the fall of Baghdad was to try to start up an "evangelism" effort in Iraq, to bring the Muslims there "the Truth about Jesus Christ." The Christians already in Iraq? Well, they were Anglicans, or Orthodox, or Coptic...not a single "born-again,' "Bible-believing" evangelical among them. Why, they'd probably never even heard of The Fundamentals (the early 20th century American tracts from which the term "fundamentalism" came) or the "Four Spiritual Laws." Not real Christians at all! :eyes:

[burrowowl]

16. Wrong kind of Chritians!

Bu$h and Co only support fundies U$A types.

[Thommy Bhoy]

3. Dire Times For Iraq's Christians

I don't know how many are aware that Christianity has been alive and well in the Middle East for 2000 years. The Ancient and Historical Orthodox and Coptic Churches have been tolerated by Islam for centuries and it might be possible that the absolute presumptuousness of these "modern" and "newer" or Protestant Churches' presence is resented. There is more than one side to this story and this country The US being a predominantly Protestant country, is not going to defend Orthodoxy or Catholicism in any form, rendering this piece of News tainted and inaccurate.

[SFLady]

5. Nail on the Head

This brave soul is an Anglican and therefore, to the fundies of the U.S. Reilgious Right, not valid Christians. Not worth worryung about, and in deed, as not "real" Christians, no loss. Sad, very sad.

[roguevalley]

10. How are the Mandeans doing? THey are among the oldest sects

there.

[miles 2 go]

4. My first thought was....

they are going to push the injustices to Christians as a reason why we must stay in Iraq. We must defend those poor Christians don't cha know.

Just what came into my head when I heard that report.

[regnaD kciN]

7. Not bloody likely...

The Iraqi Christian communities are a) too small and b) not the "right kind of Christians" to interest the Republican's Bible-thumping fanboyz. I'm sure they'd rather those communities die out to clear the ground for U.S. fundies to come in and start building megachurches in their place. :eyes:

[fujiyama]

17. I thought it was clear from the report

that the current plight of the Iraqi Christian community is a direct result of the US invasion.

Though, I was disgusted by the "surge is working" bullshit pushed through the piece.

[miles 2 go]

18. It certainly could have been. I only caught it in bits & pieces

I'm thinking that I have heard something else recently along the lines of the persecution of the Christians in Iraq and it just kind of rung that this may just be a new ploy to rally the masses to support the war.
Now I don't know why I would be suspicious of absolutely everything I hear on tv anymore.:shrug:

People here on DU are pretty informed and I kind of count on you guys to guide me. So if you guys haven't gotten the feeling that "they" are using this as a new war rallying point, then I can pretty much write it off as me being overly suspicious. Thanks for the input.

[Ian David]

8. Who says the media never reports the good news from Iraq? n/t

[spoony]

12. IanDB1: fan of genocide

Way to reveal your true colours.

[Historic NY]

9. Underground churches.........

sounds like the early Catholics in Roman occupied Italy, in the catacombs.

[Kingofalldems]

11. To the fundy hicks these people are not Christians

[spoony]

13. Bush took out a secular head of state and handed a country over to chaos.

And yet, somehow, there are still people who think history will vindicate this atrocity and its authors! Oh, I forgot, the surge is working, everything's fine now!

[johnfunk]

14. "Makin' good progress." If you want to call ethnic cleansing and religious slaughter progress.

Nice work there, Georgie...

[KamaAina]

15. Ah yes, freedom on the march.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: