A Church of England bishop has called on the British Government to do more for Christians in Iraq.
The bishop of Leeds, Nicholas Baines, has written to David Cameron with the support of the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, according to The Observer.
The letter describes the government’s Middle East policy as incoherent, ill-thought-out and determined by “the loudest media voice at any particular time”.
The Observer says it describes the UK’s foreign policy as so muddled and reactive that it is “difficult to discern the strategic intentions” of the government’s approach to the region.
Mr Cameron is accused of turning his back on the suffering of Christians. The letter asks why the plight of religious minorities in Iraq, such as the Yazidis, seems to have taken precedence. It notes that, though the government responded promptly to reports of at least 30,000 Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, the fate of tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians fleeing jihadists from Mosul, Iraq’s second city, and elsewhere appears to have “fallen from consciousness”.
Dr Baines also takes the Prime Minister to task for failing to develop an effective plan to tackle the spread of violent Islamist extremism in Nigeria, where the militant group Boko Haram has terrorised the north of the country. “We do not seem to have a coherent or comprehensive approach to Islamic extremism as it is developing across the globe,” the bishop writes.
Meanwhile, Canon Andrew White, the vicar of St George’s Church, Baghdad, the only Anglican church in Iraq, is calling for military intervention. Canon White writes of a secret visit to Qaraqosh (also known as Bakhdida – see MAP) the largest Christian town in Iraq until it was over-run by ISIS two weeks ago, causing a mass evacuation of Christians to Irbil in the Kurdish sector.
Some 30,000 refugees are packed into the Kurdish capital, forming a new Christian suburb at Ankawa, near Irbil airport.
Canon White said, ‘I spoke to one woman who had survived the massacres in Qaraqosh. She had a bandaged left hand. When IS soldiers could not remove her gold wedding ring, they had simply hacked off her finger. She wept as she told me.’
Dr White has been at the forefront of practical action. ‘These people need mattresses, clothes, blankets and food,’ he says. But he is also now calling for military intervention ‘I now believe that military action of some sort is necessary, if only to reduce the movement of IS tanks, their soldiers, and their power and authority on the ground,’ he says.
There is some indication that the British Government may be moving in that direction. David Cameron has spoken of the need for a “firm security response.”
Kurdish Peshmerga troops have at this time of writing retaken villages to the east of the Mosul Dam and are close to taking the dam itself. They have achieved this military success with the help of American air cover.
But the Kurds and the Christian Qaraqosh Protection Committee now need to move closer to Mosul itself first retaking the area between Irbil and Mosul which includes Qaraqosh. The people will only be able to return to Qaraqosh when the Tigris river, from where the town pipes its water supply, is retaken. For this to happen, the US will need to take out as many ISIS military assets as possible, including the tanks and artillery it supplied to the Iraqi Northern Division, now in ISIS hands.
READ: Ex 15:1-3; Psalm 10:1-18, 44:22-26, 62:1-8, 116:15; Prov 24:11-12; Lam 1:12; Matt 10:23; Luke 21:12; Rev 12:11
PRAY: That God would protect the Christians throughout Iraq from violence. That there would be a halt to the progress of ISIS and cities would be freed from their law. That there would be enough resources to take care of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and that they might be able to return home soon. That the persecution of Christians would not be ignored by the West, but that effective action would be taken by those in power to protect our brothers and sisters.
WRITE: (Or Email) your MP at House of Commons, LONDON, SW1A 0AA. Ask him/her to urge Her Majesty’s Government to support efforts to retake Qaraqosh and Mosul and to protect Christians in Iraq. Ask what they are pressing the Iraqi government to do. Ask if they will be offering asylum to Iraqi Christians. Ask if they are still supporting the rebels in Syria or if they have at last decided it’s time to switch sides. Stress that it was Her Majesty’s Government who got Iraq into this mess and funded what has become ISIS in Syria.
WITNESS: Outside the Iraqi Embassy, 21, Queen’s Gate, London SW7 5JE, on Friday 22nd August from 2pm to 4pm. Nearest tube: Gloucester Road.
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Surely the position of the British government is ridiculous!!
The massive SUNNI army known as ISIS is a creation of the usual culprits (the NEOCONS, their British poodle, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel) and was formed to de-stabliize SHIITE controlled Syria, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon (SUNNIS and SHIITES are enemies).
The training was done in a secret military base in Jordan starting 2007 and the 1st target was President Assad’s regime. By design or accident (we will never know) the ISIS army has now spilled over into Iraq.
So now we are being told that British lives, limbs and taxes must be expended confronting a terrorist army which the British government helped create!!
And if that weren’t bad enough we are also hearing that ISIS will be targeting the UK mainland which presumably means further powers to the MASS SURVEILLANCE STATE to defend us from– I will say it again–the terrorist army that our government helped create!!.
Surly the long term answer is to stop interfering in the internal affairs of other nations and to pursue a moral foreign policy that defends British interests instead of a sleazy one advancing the interests of sleazy foreign governments/interest groups—so simple!
It’s a curious irony that the USA is now having to help the Kurd goodies partly because the ISIS baddies have American weapons which are superior to the old Soviet weapons used by the Kurds. And for our part, we have been supplying the Kurds with suitable ammunition obtained from former communist countries. It’s a funny old world.
Yes, and the Americans are having to blow up their own weaponry with ISIS baddies in it.
Furthermore, ISIS would not have arisen had the US and Britain backed President Assad.
Indeed, Michael Isola contends that Britain helped train them.
Jeremiah 5:4 So I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish; for they do not know the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God.
Our Western politicians!
Actually, he appears to be referring to Jerusalem, not Westminster, Washington, Brussels, Paris or Berlin.
Moreover, it is the entire Jewish population of Jerusalem , not just the politicians.
Jeremiah 5.1 “… Search her wide squares, can you find any man who acts justly, who seeks the truth, that I might forgive the city ? “.
Interesting point you raise, Rox, about the scope of prophecies. I should say that if God hated those things then in Jerusalem, that he would hate them wherever he sees them in whatever nation today. That is born out by the various judgments on Gentile nations in the Bible, starting with Sodom and Gomorrah, and by this verse in the passage you and Davidw are both quoting:
Jer 5:9 Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
There is as you point out a corporate responsibility in such a nation, but verse 5 then singles out the leaders.
OK, then, it probably applies to the politicians and people of Baghdad and Beijing, perhaps even Caracas and Delhi, in fact to anybody you choose to apply it to. So it turns out that Jeremiah hasn’t commented so wisely on the performance of our “Western” politicians after all.
I suppose this may be one reason that Christians argue so much about their interpretation of the Bible.
It applies to any people (or persons) who turn their back on the Lord and do not follow his ways. Jeremiah was right then and he’s right now.
But Jeremiah doesn’t tell us who these people are. It is still up to us to recognise bad politicians and citizens, with or without the help of the Bible.
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