'Vicar of Baghdad' Shares How Christians Can Best Help Those Terrorized by ISIS: "These Are Your People"

Leah Marieann Klett : Mar 3, 2016
Gospel Herald

"I have a tradition. I always invite people, even bad people, to come have dinner with me. I invited some of the ISIS leaders. They said, 'If we come, we'll chop your head off.' I didn't invite them again." -Canon Andrew White

Canon Andrew White, also known as the "Vicar of Baghdad," recently shared sobering accounts of how the Islamic State group continues to terrorize Christians across the Middle East—and how Believers in the West can help. (Photo: The Gospel Herald)

During a session titled "Christian Genocide" held during Proclaim 16, the NRB International Christian Media Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, White first extended greetings from "The Church. The Persecuted Church. Not just in Iraq, but many other places connected with the Middle East."
 
The minister, who is widely respected for his peacemaking efforts between Christians and Muslims, was ordered by Archbishop of Canterbury to leave his church in Baghdad in December of 2014 as Christians in Iraq came under increasing threat from the Islamic State terrorists.
 
"Most of our people are not in Baghdad anymore. I was in Baghdad. But ISIS came in and they basically destined to massacre our people," White recalled.
 
He illustrated how the city's Christian population lived under constant threat, forcing them to escape with "whatever they had on their backs" to Erbil in northern Iraq and some farther on to Jordan. While their bodies were safe, "their hopes were destroyed," White lamented.
 
The pastor revealed that during his time serving as head of St. George's Church—the only Anglican church in Iraq—he invited members of the extremist group into his home to share with them the love of Christ.
 
"I have a tradition. I always invite people, even bad people, to come have dinner with me. I invited some of the ISIS leaders," he said. "They said, 'If we come, we'll chop your head off.' I didn't invite them again."
 
Christians in the Middle East continue to live in desperate conditions, lacking sufficient accommodations, food, healthcare, and education. He recalled one particularly heartbreaking story, where he met with a family who had lost their father. The pastor asked the small boy, Mario, what he could do for him.
 
"He put his arms around me," White recalled, "and he said, 'Father, will you be my daddy? Can you get me in school?"
 
"We Christians! We talk about looking after..."
 
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