Of the roughly 80 million members of the Anglican Church worldwide, the Rev. Andrew White reckons none of them would want his job.
Few would voluntarily risk death over six years of war in order to provide the spiritual and daily needs of Iraqi Christians. Who would live in Baghdad if they could get out at any time, with their wife and two children back home in England?
What would possess a man to cross the entryway into St. George’s Church on Haifa Street in downtown Baghdad a few years ago, at the height of the sectarian massacre, on a morning when bodies hung from the streetlights?
In the simplest terms, White said he had a calling.
"I was an anesthesiologist," he said, en route this Palm Sunday from the Green Zone to the church in his armored convoy. "I put people to sleep. Then I realized I could put people to sleep with a sermon."
White maintains a quick and astute sense of humor. So far, he says, it’s been a good year. Only six church members had been kidnapped as of Sunday.
"Last year I had 93 people killed," he said simply. "They’re killed because they’re Christians or because they’ve converted from Islam. That’s the most dangerous thing. The last five people killed this year, I baptized. They pleaded with me to baptize them. They were killed a week later, all of them."
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