Remembrance Service

Again may I thank you so much for inviting me to share in this service this Sunday morning. Given that it’s Remembrance Sunday and that we are remembering those who have died, those who have given their lives for freedom, particularly for this nation, and for others, it’s fairly valuable that we focus on this single word ‘remember’. And particularly for me and the work of the Barnabas Fund in the context of the church, and of a suffering church, we are to remember that we are a part of the body of Christ. And that body is here on Earth; our Lord’s body. The head is in heaven, the body’s on Earth. And as his body was broken when he physically was on Earth, just as his blood was shed, so today his body, his people, continue to suffer pain, suffering, death. Their blood continues to be shed.

And just as we remember him when we come to the service of Holy Communion so I believe that we are called to remember his people, moment by moment, day by day. And as we remember them, and as we remember that we are a part of them we need to remember love. Our Lord in this passage in John 15 focuses very much on love. In Remembrance Services we remember those who loved not their lives but were willing to lay down their lives for their friends, for their countrymen, for their call of duty. As Christians we remember our Lord Jesus Christ who laid down his life for us.

Today we remember our suffering brothers and sisters on the basis of love, because it is love that undergirds them and undergirds us. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave his disciples a new commandment. It’s an echoing theme in John 13-17. A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples.

There are 4 calls to love in the gospels: We are called to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, strength and mind. We are called to love our neighbours as ourselves. We are called to love our enemies. But we are called in this new commandment to love the brethren; to love our brothers and sisters. This is meant to be the hallmark of the Christian community; their love for one another. And we must of necessity remember this love. This call to love. This new commandment that Jesus gave to his disciples.

And today this call to love has never been more necessary. Two weeks ago in Rawalpindi a suicide bomber exploded his bomb in an Islamic university for women. He was a man dressed as a women, he had strapped around his body his explosives. And as he moved towards the cafeteria to explode his bomb that would have killed many, many Muslim girls one of the guards saw what he was doing and went to stop him. He immediately drew his gun and shot that person. But there was another person around. This was a Christian. His name was Samuel. He was just over 20 and he was a day labourer. In other words he was part of the Christian community which is at the very bottom of the pile, that hires themselves out each day. He was a very simple man. He saw the guard go down, he saw the suicide bomber heading to the cafeteria. And rather than run away, and rather than say “in this university I’m being discriminated against, I’m a 2nd class citizen, they hate me”, rather he went to the suicide bomber, and hugged the suicide bomber, threw him to the wall and kept on holding him while the suicide bomber exploded his bomb. And this very simple Christian man died.

Today in Pakistan he is hailed as a national hero, but he was a Pakistani Christian. In the Northwest frontier, Pakistani Christians do one of two jobs, 80% of them. They either sweep the streets or clean the sewers. They are the despised of the despised, the bottom of the pile. The Muslims regard them as inferior citizens. But here was a man who, seeing a need, was willing to give his life, so that Muslims could be saved, in an Islamic, Sharia university. I’ve thought much about this young man, leaving behind a wife and a child. And I’ve thought of what it means to be a Christian in a society where you are despised, but where you are not called to hate, but only to love, because our faith is a faith based on love.

When allied bombers bombed Afghanistan in 2001 many of the Afghans fled into the city of Peshawar. And as I’ve just said, Peshawar has Christians whose primary jobs are menial; cleaning the streets and cleaning the sewers. These new refugees took the jobs that the Christians had, and suddenly, overnight, those Christians found themselves bereft of any work; all their means of livelihood was gone. The government of Pakistan did not come to their aid, the aid agencies had signed agreements with the government saying they could not care for the Christian communities. The Bishop of Peshawar and Canon of Peshawar Cathedral appealed to churches and others, saying ‘Will you not come? Will you not assist?’, and no one came to his aid. In the most recent conflict in Waziristan in the northwest frontier the Pakistani armed forces have launched a major attack against Taliban. 2 million refugees, there are over 200,000 Christians living in the northwest frontier. And many of them had to flee the fighting. And they found themselves unable to get aid, either from government or from UN agencies. The Bishop appealed to us for help, and it was the Barnabas Fund that provided aid.

Last Tuesday the oldest girls’ school in Pakistan, a Christian school, St Denis, was burned to the ground. The Bishop of Lahore stated it most likely it was because of a chemical being used; a military strike against our oldest Christian institution. 2 months ago a township was attacked by terrorists, killing a number of Christians, destroying homes and churches. As the war in Afghanistan rages particularly in the south, Christians in Pakistan are feeling the effects. Let us remember our brothers and sisters in Pakistan.

Last week a bomb exploded in Baghdad, outside of the Anglican Church of St George. But when you look at that bomb that went off with the horrendous casualties and its effects upon the Church, since 2003 a Christian community that was saved under Saddam Hussain has now found themselves at their wits’ end, filled with despair. I first went into Iraq in 1998/99, one of the few to go in, followed later by the Bishop of Coventry, and others. And we began a programme to assist Christian churches across Iraq. In those days there were still over 1 million to 1.5 million Christians. Saddam was a brutal dictator, but he did not persecute the church.

I was in Iraq in 2003, just after the 2nd Gulf War, and already problems had started for the Christians. In 2007 I was the British military consul advisor in Basra and I was able to see first-hand from a military perspective the difficulties the Christians were facing. Today most of the Christians have left Basra. In Dhi Qar 3 families are left, in Anbar province no Christians are left. Baghdad; more than 60-70% of all Christians have fled. Mosul have now been struck and most Christians have fled from there. Kirkuk is following. What we have left in Iraq is a small remnant of what had been there prior to 2003. The coalition forces, principally UK and the US government, have written the Assyrian Christians out of the constitution. Iraq is now known either in terms of ethnicity as Arab-Kurd, or in terms of religion as Sunni-Shia. The ancient Christian communities there from day one of the Christian calendar, the Church meeting in Jerusalem, have virtually disappeared.

In Baghdad the famous letters were circulated last year. It called on Christians to do one of four things: either to convert to Islam; if they did not convert to Islam to pay Jizya tax to accept that they’re 2nd class citizens, with all the limitations that that would involve, or they should leave the country. Failing that they would be killed. Those that refused to convert, or to pay Jizya or to leave found family members kidnapped and beheaded. Finally many left. The British, the US military and others were unable to protect.

I was in Peshawar diocese last year when very similar letters were circulated to the Christian leaders. And the Christian leaders said ‘there is nowhere for us to go. If we go to Iran we will be persecuted, if we go to Afghanistan we will face death.’ Therefore rather than convert to Islam they knelt down and prayed, and they said ‘if we die, we die, but we will not convert’. Let us remember the Christians of Iraq and what is left of them. A once noble church now scattered across the Middle East, the UK and elsewhere. Over 400,000 Christian Iraqis in Syria. We, our governments have presided over the destruction of Christian communities. And Christians find themselves increasingly caught in the middle of wars being fought: the 2001 Afghan war; the 2003 Iraq war; 2006, our move into Helmand province that saw the escalation of the Afghan conflict - Mr Bush’s war on terror. And as that war has been globalised, so Christian minorities find themselves increasingly under pressure.

In many parts of the world increasingly there are reactions against the West, reactions against globalisation, against what many see as a new imperialism. And so the new nationalisms are developing. Where there’s been the former Soviet Union, this week in Uzbekistan Christians were arrested for meeting together, pastors are imprisoned. In Uzbekistan you cannot read the Bible in your own home; it can only be read in a church building. Russia today, under Putin as prime minister, and when he was president, the Baptist and evangelical leaders told me last year, is worse than it was in the days of the KGB and under communism. In India – a secular democracy. We have the anti-conversion laws and the massive riots and killing in Orissa that saw 50,000 Christians homeless; many died. In Sri Lanka we have the anti-conversion laws. In Burma a militant nationalist junta of generals persecute the Chins, the Karens, the Kachins – the Christian minorities. This is our age; an age where to be a Christian and to be a national is regarded to be Western, and increasingly to be outlawed. The church is indeed in chains. And we are called to remember the church, and to remember her in her need, as she faces discrimination and marginalisation, deprivation and poverty, so we are called to remember her. Praise God that it is a growing church, for the work of the Holy Spirit is not bound.

And one of the major reasons for persecution is the growth of the church. Across the Muslim world there is no place where there are not now believers. Whether it be in Iran or in Saudi Arabia, the heartlands of Islam has seen major conversions to our Lord Jesus Christ. And the gospel is indeed unhindered. Some say that the church in India in 2020 will rival that of the church in China. Just last month I was giving the address at the general Synod, the Synod of the Church of Nigeria, with the Primate, the Archbishops and the Bishops. The Church of Nigeria now numbers 26 million. When I was there they’d already seen 200 new churches started. In June I was with the Primate and Bishops of Uganda. A third of Uganda, about 10 million people, are Anglican, Christian - just Anglicans, and the Church is growing like wildfire.

Ours is not a day when the church is in a defeatist mode, and we must remember that it’s the Lord who will keep his church. Nigeria – in the present issue of our Barnabas Fund, in the editorial, I spoke of brother George. In the riots in July in Maiduguri the Nigerian Taliban had been created, and began to attack the police and military. As the military attacked them they turned their attention to the Christians. Pastor George and other pastors were captured. He was told, with others, to convert to Islam. He did not. And this is what he said, before being beheaded; ‘tell my brothers that I died well and am living with Christ. And if we all die we know that we die for the Lord.’ And after saying those words he was beheaded, a martyr for the Lord; ‘tell my brethren I died well. I kept the faith’.

Remember our brothers and sisters, and remember that we are a part of them, and they are part of us. We share their life and they share our life. Please do take our magazine, and please do sign the petition. And you will books there at the back, on Great Britain, where Barnabas Fund do have a focus. ‘Faith, Power and Territory’ I wrote just over a year ago to try to look at what is happening in the UK, how Islam is transforming Great Britain, the issue of how the church is being affected by Islam. And a book which is used as a military textbook, but if you want to understand the phenomenal growth of Islam and the military aspects, my book ‘Global Jihad’. Thank you for your prayers.