VOICE OF PEACE: CANON ANDREW WHITE

Does your pastor travel with thirty-five armed guards and wear body armor?  In one year, has your church ever had over a thousand souls killed?  Has your church staff ever been killed or kidnapped?

This is life for God's servant priest, the Vicar of Baghdad.  Canon Andrew White's life work is to sit down with the Muslim, Jew, and Christian with a view toward reconciliation.

Chuck Colson's group awarded Canon White with this year's William Wilberforce award as someone who is a witness of Christ in society.

Wilberforce fought to end slavery in the UK, but he also had his finger in many other of society's injustice pies.  That is just like the Vicar's life.  This LINK is to an interview with Canon White to give you a flavor of his very unusual story.

BEGINNINGS
This reconciler was born and raised in England by an Indian father (Baptist) and a British mother (Pentecostal).  His skin color makes him look somewhat Middle-Eastern.  He carries a Bible that once belong to Smith Wigglesworth; it was given to him by his grandfather who was Wigglesworth's assistant.

ASPIRATIONS
When Andrew was a boy, he would walk past William Wilberforce's home in Clapper and ask the Lord to let him serve with just some of the fervor that Wilberforce had.  Considering his service in Baghdad, that prayer has been answered.

PEDIGREE
The Vicar graduated from Cambridge and went on to become an anesthesiologist.  He served his church in London as well as "in hospital" (as the Brits say) before later becoming the Archbishop of Canterbury's Envoy to the Middle East.

He is fluent in several languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and English...and is a Hebrew scholar who spent years in Jerusalem.  His great love for people allows him to move in and out of different cultures.

SERVICE
The Vicar reopened St. George's church in Baghdad in 1998.  Originally built in 1864, most of St. George's present structure was built in 1936 as a memorial to the British soldiers who died in Mesopotamia in WW1.  The church closed after the Gulf War, but at its reopening, it is the only Anglican church in Iraq.

The church first served diplomats/military who lived inside the Green Zone, but St. George's is outside that area and after the insurgency, travel became too dangerous.  Now the congregation is all Iraqi and the services are in Aramaic.  There are about 500 Muslims who attend services.

The other five days a week, St. George's is bustling.  They have a free clinic which has radiology, hematology, surgery, dental, etc. to serve around 150 Iraqi patients daily.  There is a program to feed the hungry and a school...all within the walls of the church.  And Canon White also writes books.

PHYSICAL
The Vicar is 6'3", a big man full of big love and a big sense of humor.  He speaks with difficulty due to a fight with Multiple Sclerosis which has been going on for seventeen years.  The hematologist in their clinic at St. George's has given him experimental treatment which is against the law in America or Great Britain.  These injections (of his own stem cells) have been given for five years and they've made a big difference in his ability to walk and speak.  Isn't it curious that if anyone wanted to try this course of treatment, they couldn't get it legally ANYWHERE in the world but Baghdad?  Canon White says that what God calls us to do, He equips us to do.

FAMILY
The White family includes a wife and two boys who live in England after life in Baghdad became impossibly dangerous.  The Vicar goes home about every six weeks.  There are many orphans in Iraq and Canon White has also adopted four Iraqi children.

THE FUTURE
Andrew White says that while he does not want to be blown up, he knows that as long as God's purpose for him remains, he will remain alive to do it.

Christians in Iraq are considered the oldest surviving continuous Christian communities in the world, dating to the first century.  Yet daily they are specifically targeted for bombs, kidnapping, torture and rape.  Many leave Iraq because of this daily martyrdom, but the remaining brothers and sisters in Christ have a strong advocate in the Vicar of Baghdad.  They call him "Aboona" (Arabic for "Father").

If you would like to know more about how you might pray for Canon Andrew White...or give to his ministry, this LINK is to his organization, The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.

God, thank you for your promise to bless the peacemakers.

TANGLED

Our government has been caught in lie after lie.

We do NOT get to keep our docs or our insurance plans or save $2,500.  It was NOT a rogue IRS agent in Cincinnati.  We do NOT have the most transparent administration ever. They will NOT "get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi and bring the perpetrator to justice".

In fact, the only thing said that this administration told us we COULD believe...was that our nation would be changed.

An email was released this week.

It's the one the White House must have missed when they stonewalled for 20 months, then declared they had given us all they had, then finally released a redacted (beyond legibility) copy, and then finally, after Judicial Watch sued, VOILA!  An email has surfaced to begin to show the truth.

There are more emails to come, but here's what this email tells us:

#1.  THE TALKING POINTS WERE REDONE, TOSSING THE CONSENSUS OF INTELLIGENCE OPINION (from military both on the ground and watching a live feed in Germany, the CIA, and the Sec'y of State's bureau chief in Benghazi) TO WASHINGTON'S DESCRIPTION OF THE EVENTS.  

Now the word "attack" was changed to "demonstration"...caused by a spontaneous video.  In fact, at 10:07 that night, Sec'y Clinton sent out a public statement saying the problem was "inflammatory material posted on the internet".  The battle would continue for over an hour after her statement.

The author of the new email was Ben Rhodes, the White House Deputy National Security Adviser.  He wrote to prep Susan Rice (and others) and to frame the issue "so it wouldn't be viewed as a broader failure of their policies...to reinforce the President and Administration's STRENGTH and STEADINESS in dealing with difficult challenges".

A week before, the President stood before the Democratic convention and said AlQaeda was on the run.  He was weeks away from his reelection.  Is that why they changed the intelligence and blamed a video?  So he could appear steady and strong?

Enter a man named Tommy Vietor.  This 32-year-old began his work for then Senator Obama as his VAN DRIVER, working his way up to be the National Security Council spokesman in the White House.

VIETOR (in an interview with Brett Baier on whether he had changed the word "attack" to "demonstration"):  "Maybe.  I don't really remember."

BAIER:  "You don't remember?"

VIETOR:  "Dude, this was like two years ago.  We're still talking about the most mundane process."

This LINK to the Tommy Vietor interview reveals a snarky and immature man working at the highest level in national security.  However, he did tell us the second thing about Benghazi:

#2.  PRESIDENT OBAMA WAS NOT IN THE SITUATION ROOM.    No one has ever seemed to know anything about where the President was.  They are quick to say that he can be in touch wherever he is...but if my country is under attack, I would love to think someone besides Tommy Vietor was in the Situation Room.

I would also love to think the off-grid President had touched base with the Defense Sec'y...but Panetta testified he didn't talk again with the President after their 5:00 meeting when the President was told of the attack.  Panetta also testified he never talked again to Sec'y Clinton, yet the whereabouts of her Ambassador was unknown for much of that time.

How could the country be under attack and no one was minding the store?  We know the military must have been chomping at the bit.  The head of the Afri-Com theatre, General Carter Ham, "retired" after the attack.  This week a retired Air Force Brig. General Lovell, Deputy Intelligence Director for Afri-Com (who was watching a live feed in Germany), tersely testified "We knew quite early on that this was no demonstration gone terribly awry".  Gen. Lovell was also asked if they told him to go save the people in Benghazi.  "Not to my knowledge, sir."  The night of Gen. Lovell's testimony, NBC/CBS did not report on it; ABC gave it 45 seconds.

Here is what JAY CARNEY, White House spokesperson, had to say today when asked about the email:  "The email is not about Benghazi."

I've heard of nerves like a burglar in daylight.  You take the cake, Jay.

This from GEORGE WILL:  "The most riveting thing I've seen is in Catherine Herridge's report saying that even before the attack was over Mrs. Clinton has sent out that press release about the video.  That could have been considered reasonable (given there was a battle, then a pause, then more battle).  But then three days later when the bodies came home, why did Mrs. Clinto speak to the families and double down on the video, saying 'We will arrest and prosecute the perpetrator of the video"?

In the first three days, all knew the terrorist attack had nothing to do with a video.  And the President STILL went on Letterman and The View and even went to the United Nations...WEEKS later blaming the video.  Why?

Those are legitimate questions.  They are not extremist, right-wing questions that "only Fox" asks...but things that Americans have a right to know.

Our ambassador died a torturous death in those hours he was missing.  The special forces soldiers fought long and hard with no backup.  You tell me...what Commander-in-Chief does not talk to the military during an attack?  Who does not authorize a rescue?  Who prioritizes a cheesy Vegas fund-raiser the morning after the country has just been attacked?  Who says they will "get to the bottom of it" and then doesn't?

Here's what we know for a FACT.  The world saw that it is possible to poke America in the eye and get away with it.  And the men who serve in our military saw their own get left behind.  What does that do for morale?

Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson, you were right.  Catherine Herridge and James Rosen and Brett Baier, you were right.  Thank you for pursuing the TRUTH about the change we got in 2008.

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

Last week we were in Little Rock and got to take a grandgirl to her soccer game.  When we arrived on the hill, the area was working alive with kids running in every direction on a myriad of fields.

Caroline's parents had given us a piece of essential information:  FIELD #3.

In life, it's also important to know which field we play on.  Lately the news is chocked full of hateful racism.  That demeaning meanness makes everyone WEARY.  It is bone-tiring to hear, especially when we thought it had been dealt with in the last election.  Progress, smogress.

As a reaction, Facebook posts are popping up of sweet babies captioned with statements that say children have to be taught to hate.  Is that what God says?

Perhaps it is helpful to begin by remembering our playing field.  We all (every living, breathing soul on Planet Earth) is on a level field called SIN.

It might be unpopular to say, but if a baby was not taught to hate, the baby would still exalt himself over others.

People (and babies) may not be a "Sterling" example, but when we prefer ourselves over others, we are showing one of the faces belonging to pride.  Pride exalts and racism is just an exaggerated category of pride.

Babies don't have to be taught to assert their will or prefer themselves.  That comes naturally.  Ever see a baby take a toy?  Want it...take it...MINE!  Babies are precious and cuddly, but they do remind us of our fallen condition that prefers self.

The antitoxin for that is Jesus.  He neutralizes my need to make more of myself, and gives me the "energy to AND want to" to make more of Him and less of me.  He gives me a regard for others simply because they are made in His image.  Some days that works better than others...not because He is lacking, but because my cooperation is sketchy.

So when the Clippers owner degrades others, which law could we write to keep him from doing that?  We have punitive laws that dissuade, but there is no law which overrides human will.  Now you're talking about God's business.  He's the only One who is able to change Donald Sterling's heart.  Or mine.

But have you noticed how the world jumps in?  Everyone loves to point and cluck about how awful the other guy is.  He's such a racist!  Yes.  But so am I.

Do I think of myself as better than others?  I have preferred myself before and I will in the future...no matter how repugnant it looks to me in my rational moment.  Preferring self just keeps popping up.  Undealt with, it grows.  Dealing with my selfishness means remembering that Christ died for the one who cuts me off in traffic, the person whose needs sap your patience, the one with body odor you must sit next to @the Revenue office, and the person under-educated but over-opinionated.  Sometimes they are one at a time and sometimes they are clumped together in a group, but when I regard myself as better or cleaner or more empathetic or smarter...that is self-exaltation which pushes another down.  God abhors pride by the teaspoon or by the boatload.

So would all the NBA players who bravely now complain about their owner, please tell me...is this the first inkling you had of Sterling's belief system?  Did you trust him after the 2009 NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award?  (The NAACP quickly cancelled the same award they were about to give him for 2014.)  Surely you knew of his court conviction as a slum lord, so did you play for a racist knowingly?  Then you prove money talks and your standards are lacking.  If you were truly interested in cleaning up the NBA, there are plenty of lifestyle issues that also cry for attention in your own backyard.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was wise when he helped us aspire to the day when all men would be judged by the content of their character.  Those heavenly words lift our heads to a better place now, but ultimately to a future day.  

In THAT DAY, pride will no longer have sway over anyone.  And in the meantime, He gives us our time on Earth so the sanctified can "work" at hearing the soft voice of the Spirit wooing them back into fellowship.  That way, there won't be as much changing for the Lord to do in us when we see Him.

The administration of that "program" isn't sourced out of Washington.

Remember the Bible story about the woman caught in adultery who was about to be stoned?  Whatever Jesus said to her accusers, one at a time they dropped their stones and meekly walked away.  Before you pick up a stone for Donald Sterling, examine your heart carefully for pride.  You might just squash the notion that only others are self-exalters.

We cannot legislate racism away...or just "wait for the old guys to die".  Pride will always be on Earth as part of the curse.  We deal with it through the antidote for pride, the Heart Changer who offers a future and a hope, one heart at a time.  Thank you, Lord, that Jesus saves us from ourselves.