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The Vicar of Baghdad Revd Andrew White
Monarch Books 2009 (ISBN 978-85424-876-3) UK £8.99
So, how do you move from being a parish priest in London to being one of the most influential people in the pursuit for peace in Iraq?
Well, ‘cometh the hour cometh the man’ and throughout history God has raised up the right man, woman or child to meet a certain challenge and to be God’s person in any given situation.
In a way this short explosive book (probably not the best word to use!) reads in a similar way to Mark’s Gospel. In almost a breathless fashion we follow Andrew as he takes us on his journey from fulfilling his childhood dream of working at St Thomas’s hospital as an ‘operating department practitioner’ through to ordination and then being drawn ever deeper into the world of peace negotiations. This began in earnest with the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002. By then Andrew was ‘Canon in Charge of international ministry at Coventry Cathedral,’ succeeding the much celebrated Canon Paul Oestreicher.
This ‘experience’ was to bring him into Iraq as vicar of St George’s Church during the turbulent years leading up to the war and the overthrow of Saddam Husain. Then the long and ongoing search for peace, stability and the restoration of the country and its place in world affairs not as a pariah state but as a welcome ally.
If this book was fiction it would still be a cracking good read, an adventure story of long journeys, hopes and fears, death, torture and mayhem. There are political blunders, misunderstanding of seeking resolutions by a secular West’ to the religious East, people of faith need people of faith to help find a positive way forward.
But this is not fiction, but fact! The fact of God at work in the world of high politics, bringing together the right people to work hard for peace and to quieten the men of violence while seeking to understand their passions and frustrations.
Winston Churchill once said that ‘to jaw jaw is better than to war war.’ This is certainly something Andrew would give a loud assent to as above all things what he has sought to do is to get people talking to each other from across the deepest and longest held divides.
This book is supremely about hope, and a hope that God who is obviously at work in Iraq can equally be at work wherever God’s people are.
‘As my work has become ever more complex and difficult, it is only the presence of the glory of God that has enabled me to do what I have to do. With God, all things are possible. So come with me on this seemingly impossible journey and maybe you too, will see the glory of God making all things possible.’ (page 20)
Capt Gordon Banks, Diocese of Chichester
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