Posted on 09/21/2006 5:26:58 PM PDT by sionnsar
St Peter’s Anglican Cathedral in Dutse, the capital of Jigawa State in Northern Nigeria was burnt down on Tuesday 19 September by arsonists. The Bishop, the Rt Rev Yusufu Lumu and his family, his wife Phoebe, and their three children, are under police protection at the police station.
Source - The Bishop of Kano, the Rt Rev Zakka Lalle Nyam
Ruth Gledhill reports on her blog:
In the latest anti-Christian Islamist violence linked to the Pope’s recent Regensburg address, the Anglican cathedral of Dutse in northern Nigeria and all but two of the local churches have been torched. When I called Bishop Yusufu Lumu, whose seat St Peter’s cathedral is, or was, he was grateful only that no lives had been lost. His bishop’s cottage was partly burned, he said. “We have called the police but up to now they have not come out to protect the area,” he said. “We do not know what will happen next.” I asked him why he thought it happened. Even down the crackly line from Nigera, I heard him sigh. “The rumour is that someone insulted the Prophet.”
Bishop Ben Kwashi of Jos spoke to Anglican Mainstream after speaking to Bishop Yusufu Lumu of Dutse.
“Only about three churches out of about 15 are still standing in the town. The destruction was only in the town.
No reason has been given. I have spoken with the bishop. They just began looting and burning churches from about 8.30 p.m. last night. It was not until it was over that the police came. No help came whatsoever until after it had happened. The Nigerian security system is very good. This is a police system that has gone all over the world in UN peace-keeping operations. Right now we have police in Sudan, we have police in Lebanon. They were in Kosovo. They have done very well. It is not possible that something of that magnitude, directed specifically at the church and only at the church, should take our security systems unaware. There seems to be some deliberate intention to support this at state level.
Our response can be threefold.
Immediate prayer, to ask God to send his angels to surround and protect them.
Second, the provision of immediate food and clothing.
The third thing – solidarity visits from all over to encourage them. They have brothers and sisters who care for them. The extent of damage done to their church and psyche can be assessed so that the next level of help will be solid, and powerful. Our experience is that it also exposes the persecutors to shame because the visit is not to them, it is to the sufferers and those who come to them take away an impression of what has happened to them and the church in that place. That kind of publicity is negative to the persecutors and they do not like that, especially after having done it and it brings shame.”
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Thank God the Bishop and his family are safe. I wish I could do something besides praying!
Not good. I'm not familiar enough with the situation of Nigeria - I'm assuming the majority of the people and the government are Muslim? I hope the Christians there manage to find some place of safety.
Islam has bloody borders.
This is despicable. To what avail do these people do these things??
There's just no stopping the "religion of peace." /sarcasm
Wouldn't surprise me to hear that the mainline Episcopalians are secretly cheering at what they think is the much-deserved comeuppance of those bigoted Africans.
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