Update: Sky News reports that police are treating the incident as a terror incident.
Years ago, I was sitting at a church men's breakfast. If you have been a Christian for any length of time, you know the drill. Somebody gets up on a Saturday morning sometime around o'-dark-thirty and cooks a pile of food, usually scrambled eggs, pancakes, and sausage. Someone brews a truckload of coffee, and sometime just after daybreak, the men start to amble in. Everyone eats greasy food and drinks tepid coffee out of styrofoam cups. Eventually, there is a Bible reading, some small group discussion, and everything closes with prayer or hymn.
I was picking at the last of my food, and somehow, the conversation drifted into the topic of Christian persecution. The man next to me opined that he was a persecuted Christian because, as a non-Mormon living in Utah, he had to "put up with all those Mormons." I gently reminded him that the Mormons had never kidnapped and raped his wife and daughters, shot him, burned down his home, or driven a bulldozer through the side of his church. He remained firm in his belief that he was being persecuted.
My friend's attitude is a luxury that Christians in the West enjoy, but many Christians in parts of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East don't. Persecution is an uncomfortable subject for the U.S., where, in many cases, the church has evolved into something more social than spiritual. We can scoff all we want about Richard Dawkins enjoying cultural Christianity, but let's be honest: many of us prefer it that way. And it may be a luxury that we will not enjoy much longer.
On Monday, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed during services at the Christ the Good Shepherd church in Wakeley, Australia, a suburb of Sydney. He is part of the Assyrian Orthodox Church. Branches of Orthodoxy, while maintaining many common beliefs, can widely vary — Orthodox faith leaders, even more so.
Emmanuel is extremely conservative and has a strong presence on various social media platforms, particularly TikTok and YouTube. I've watched several of his videos. He preaches with vigor, has been an outspoken opponent of the LGBTQ agenda, and was vocal about the COVID-19 lockdowns. Several news agencies have referred to his branch of Orthodoxy as "ultra-conservative." "The UK Telegraph called Emmanuel a "fire and brimstone preacher."
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Bishop was stabbed six times, and four people suffered non-life-threatening injuries. They were all taken to the hospital. You can view a video of the attack here. News.com.au said that authorities took a fifteen-year-old boy into custody.
The Herald reported that following the incident, police deployed hundreds of officers to the area as crowds gathered and some people hurled objects into the intersection.
While media outlets have pointed out Emmanuel's extreme conservative views, people closer to him hold a different view.
Fairfield City Council deputy mayor Charbel Saliba is a close friend of Emmanuel’s and told the Herald:
I’ve heard the bishop is OK, and the attacker has been arrested. The congregation at the church arrested him held him down until the police came. I’ve also heard from people who were there that the bishop after he got stabbed, they restrained the attacker, put his hand on him, and prayed on him for Jesus to save him.
Federal MP for Fowler Dai Le called Emmanuel a “wonderful bishop leading the Assyrian community.”
Synagogues and churches throughout the U.S. have been the scenes of mass shootings and various threats. What was once considered remote and even somewhat anecdotal and confined to other parts of the globe is now becoming part and parcel of life in the West. And it is something that Christians from persecuted countries have been warning about for years.
Someday, we may all have the luxury of arguing about the five solas, whether or not Catholics and Orthodox Christians are idolaters, whether Mormons are Christians, if one can lose one's salvation, infant baptism, replacement theology, or whatever else is lodged in one's craw. I hope we can all sit down one day with a pint of whatever beverage we favor and argue until we are red-eyed and hoarse, but that day has not arrived.
We are confronted with ever-mounting evil, and none of us is safe. If and when the world rights itself, we can take up those arguments. Until then, as Franklin said, if we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.
