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Science & Values Blog

Humanists try to Close Christian Zoo

It seems the British Humanist Association (BHA) has become a self-appointed arbiter of science. In criticising a Christian-owned zoo this week, it seems to be aping Richard Dawkins in not only promoting atheism but also pontificating on what is or is not good science.

Mind you, it’s got ‘previous’ on this issue, having waded into scientific arguments on many occasions. And, true to form, it is also trying to squash opposition to evolution, instead of standing for the ‘free thinking’ it claims to embrace.

The BHA says Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxhall, North Somerset, is bad for science, and has been urging tourism boards to boycott the zoo and the local authority to revoke its licence. Of course, the BHA’s concern for good science is a cloak for its opposition to creationism. When else do you ever see the BHA standing up for good science? Answer: only when creationism or Intelligent Design theory need a good kicking. Why? Because such unorthodox science threatens the atheistic view of life that the BHA espouses. It can stomach no opposition.

Signs at the zoo suggest that the “three great people groups” of the world may be descendants of Noah – which a literal reading of the Bible would certainly support. Another sign says animal predation occurred after “man rebelled against God”. Now, such views might be typical of traditional Young Earth Creationism (YEC), but the website and two spokespeople for the zoo do say that they view “the natural world around us as a product of both God and evolution”.

A closer look at their website indicates they accept a limited form of evolution and believe that the world may be much older than the typical YEC position of less than 10,000 years. As a spokesperson says, “Although technically creationists, we do not hold the stereotypical creationist views that the world was created in 6,000 years and there is no evolution.”

So we are not dealing here with the ultra-traditional creationism that the BHA seems to want to brand this zoo as espousing. But that is no matter to the BHA – any religious view on life must be suppressed. The BHA’s criticism is an attack not only on creationism but on freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

BHA education officer Paul Pettinger says, “We’re very concerned because it will undermine education and the teaching of science.” First, it’s ridiculous that one small zoo could undermine education as a whole, and second it certainly doesn’t undermine the teaching of science itself – only the teaching of a rigid Darwinian view of evolution. But of course, the BHA needs evolution to reign supreme in order to shore up its atheistic beliefs.

The zoo’s website says that scientists are afraid to talk about “design” in the natural world, and the zoo’s owner Anthony Bush says, “There’s a lot of people who believe in Genesis who don’t want to come out of the woodwork, but they don’t want to come out of the closet because of the thought police.”

Well, it’s clear why when the Inquisitors of the BHA come knocking on your door if you cast the slightest doubt on Darwinism.

Bush, a former Evangelical preacher, says his zoo actually presents a variety of views, only one of which is creationist. “I think God created life. I have no idea when,” he adds.

One tourism group, Visit England, avoided the issue by pointing out that it only checks a zoo’s visitor satisfaction rating and has no opinion on content. On that score, Noah’s Ark Zoo is clearly a winner. Despite only having 100 animals, it is visited by 120,000 people every year, including members of school parties, yet only gets about ten complaints per year. As Noah’s Ark research assistant Jon Woodwood says, “Clearly the public do not share the British Humanist viewpoint.”

BHA director of education and public affairs Andrew Copson also accuses the zoo of deceiving people about its creationist views: ”We believe Noah’s Ark Farm Zoo misleads the public by not being open about its creationist agenda in its promotional activities.”

This is clearly untrue as the zoo website has a whole section on creationism and is completely open about its stance. And as Jon Woodwood points out, the zoo is actually named after the biblical Noah’s Ark – might that not be a big clue as to its viewpoint?!

As for undermining science education… ”Our education policy is purely based around the National Curriculum. We are offering our visitors the chance to look at the evolution/creation debate. As it is a free country, that is within our right. Contrary to a small minority of people’s claims we do not teach false science.

”This is clearly shown within the zoo, with one exhibition talking about Darwin and another offering another point of view.”

Fortunately the director of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Miranda Stevenson, is perceptive: ”I find it extraordinary that an organisation that I thought promotes free thinking appears to want censorship.”

By Andrew Halloway

The Vatican has granted its approval to a change proposed by the US bishops to the text of the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults.

The original 2004 text stated that “the covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them,” leading some to believe that the text taught that only Gentiles, and not Jews, are called to the new covenant. The revised text, approved by the bishops at their June 2008 meeting, quotes St. Paul: “To the Jewish people, whom God first chose to hear his Word, ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ’ (Romans 9:4-5; cf. CCC, no 839).”

A press release issued by the bishops’ conference notes that “the clarification is not a change in the Church’s teaching. The clarification reflects the teaching of the Church that all previous covenants that God made with the Jewish people are fulfilled in Jesus Christ through the new covenant established through his sacrificial death on the cross. Catholics believe that the Jewish people continue to live within the truth of the covenant God made with Abraham, and that God continues to be faithful to them.”

RIMINI, Italy (Zenit.org) – The director of Harvard’s AIDS Prevention Research Project is affirming that Benedict XVI’s position was right in the debate on AIDS and condoms.

Edward Green stated this in an address at the 30th annual Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples in Rimini, sponsored by the lay movement, Communion and Liberation.

Green, an expert on AIDS prevention, said that “as a scientist he was amazed to see the closeness between what the Pope said last March in Cameroon and the results of the most recent scientific discoveries.”

He affirmed: “The condom does not prevent AIDS. Only responsible sexual behavior can address the pandemic.”

Green continued, “When Benedict XVI said that different sexual behavior should be adopted in Africa, because to put trust in condoms does not serve to fight against AIDS, the international press was scandalized.”

The Pope made this statement in a meeting with journalists en route to Africa last March.

The scientist affirmed that the Holy Father spoke the truth. He noted, “The condom can work for particular individuals, but it will not serve to address the situation of a continent.”

Change habits

Green added: “To propose the regular use of the condom as prevention in Africa could have the opposite effect.”

He explained the phenomenon of human behavior called “risk compensation,” whereby a person “feels protected and thus exposes himself more.”

The researcher and medical anthropologist asked: “Why has an attempt not been made to change people’s customs?”

“The world industry has taken many years to understand that measures of a technical and medical character are of no use to solve the problem,” he added.

Green highlighted the successful policies that have been implemented in Uganda to battle AIDS, programs based in the “ABC” strategy: “Abstain, Be faithful, and, as a last resource, use a Condom.”

He reported: “In the case of Uganda, an impressive result has been obtained in the fight against AIDS.

“The president was able to tell the truth to his people, to young people, that on occasions some sacrifice, abstinence and fidelity are necessary.

“The result has been formidable.”

American Thinker – Brilliant article debunking the man made catastrophic and exponential global warming bull:-

Imagine we have gone to a movie made by a former politician (who is not a scientist). In the movie we are informed (1) the earth is warming exponentially. (2) Human beings have been and will continue to cause this warming because we release a natural gas (CO₂) into the atmosphere. (3) There will be catastrophic consequences from the exponential warming that will occur as a result of this release of CO₂. (According to the movie the planet’s icecaps will melt, polar bears will die, and cities will disappear under water.) (4) To prevent these disasters radical changes are required to reduce the amount of man-made CO₂ that is being released. (5) Draconian control of carbon dioxide output must be instituted by all governments of the world both by unilateral legislation limiting the use of fossil fuels and by tightly written treaties that further force the signatory countries to reduce their “carbon footprint.”

We’re in a dire situation — or so we have been told. To review, the catastrophes, and their solutions, are composed of these five (more or less) basic steps:

(1) The planet is getting exponentially warmer; (2) this exponential warming is caused by man-made releases of CO2; (3) because of the exponential warming, man-made CO2 releases are causing and will continue to cause unprecedented worldwide calamities; (4) to prevent these cataclysms man-made CO2 emissions must be immediately and dramatically reduced; and (5) the situation is so serious that individual nations must swiftly pass strict laws controlling CO2 emissions and international treaties must be quickly signed that insure that all countries are required to reduce their CO2emissions.

There are some philosophical problems that need to be ironed out before we take such arguments, and such movies, seriously: first, all of that catastrophic world-melting logic presented in the movie is based on induction. For example, the only way to conclude that the whole world is getting generally exponentially warmer is to foster the conclusion by taking lots and lots of specific measurements of exponentially higher and higher temperatures over time. (This also means that argument number (1) — like all the other arguments in the movie — is an argument of probability.)[i]

Furthermore, all five of the steps I have outlined above are based on what is known as sequential conditional logic.[ii] This means, put as simply as possible, that if any of the first four steps is false then the remainder of the arguments (or argument) that follow the first step found to be false are (or is) also false.[iii]  (This may seem counterintuitive – but think it through.  Go through each step, assume a step is false and then see if you can prove as true any of the others steps after the step found to be false.)

What this kind of conditional thinking means is that we jump from one “possible world” to another – but the very existence of each new “world” depends upon the existence of the “possible world” that preceded it — otherwise we jump into a void. For example in our movie:

(1) The planet is getting exponentially warmer. This is only a possibility.  So we are talking about a percentage of warming in a possible world — not necessarily our real world. (No one knows the exact temperature of the real world. In fact, there is no such thing as an exact world temperature. Temperatures vary throughout the planet.)

(2) This warming is caused by man-made releases of CO2. This is also only a possibility.  So, we are talking about an approximate amount of CO2 in a possible world — not the actual amount in our real world. (No one knows the exact amount of CO2 being released in the real world.)

The exact same logic is true for steps 3, 4, and 5. All of the logic is inductive; all of the arguments are based on probability. If the conclusion (#5) is true, all of the previous arguments must also be true.

And, as anyone who studies induction knows: the longer the string of conditionals (steps), the lower the probability that the entire set of conditionals is true.

Let’s take a look at the math and then at the probability that arguments (1) through (5) are true.[iv]  First I will show how the math works.  Then we will try to run some probability numbers for the five arguments we saw above. (Remember this science is admitted, by all sides involved, to be based on inductive logic, hence it is impossible that any of the five arguments are 100% true.)

Here is how the basic math works: let’s look at roulette wheel — it is an easy example to understand. If I only have one dollar and I bet that dollar (and continue to bet all my winnings if I have any winnings after each bet) on red five times in a row, what is the possibility of me having any money after my fifth bet?  (Remember, we are talking about truth in terms of probability, so another way of saying this is how true is it that I will win all five of my bets (= arguments) and have some money (= truth) at the end of my five bets?)

The probability of winning by betting on red on a standard American Roulette wheel is 47.37% each time – if I bet once. If I bet five times in a row the chances of my winning all five times is: .02385%.  That is the correct number.[v] If I extend my bet five times in a row the truth of the possibility of me winning every time (expressed in terms of probability) drops to less than half of one percent.

We can now try to stick some numbers to those five arguments we saw above.

(1) The world is getting exponentially warmer.  The key word here is exponentially.  I didn’t say it and I don’t believe it — but proponents of global warming do. Here is their very famous “hockey stick” graph.

READ MORE HERE

By Lillian Kwon – Christian Post Reporter

Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, made clear on Wednesday that UMC’s ban on noncelibate gay clergy still stands.

“Our Book of Discipline on that subject did not become null and void when they took that vote,” said Palmer, according to the United Methodist News Service. “It still applies to United Methodist clergy.”

Palmer was referring to the highly publicized vote last week by the chief legislative body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to approve a resolution allowing gays and lesbians in “life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships” to be ordained.

The controversial vote took place a day after ELCA delegates overwhelmingly adopted a full communion agreement with The United Methodist Church.

Full communion is not tantamount to a merger, church officials said. Instead, under the pact each church acknowledges the other as a partner in the Christian faith, recognizes the authenticity of each other’s baptism and Eucharist, and is committed to working together toward greater unity.

The two denominations also express mutual recognition of ordained ministers for service in either church, according to the agreement. Some UMC leaders have already expressed eagerness to share clergy in underserved areas, as reported by the United Methodist News Service.

Although the agreement recognizes full interchangeability of all ordained ministers, UMC congregations will not be accepting partnered homosexuals from the ELCA.

As Palmer stressed, “the doctrine, polity and standards of ministry of the respective denominations in any full communion agreement are not wiped out when one denomination does something.”

Last year, the highest legislative body of The United Methodist Church rejected changes to its constitution and voted to uphold its ban against the ordination of practicing homosexuals. United Methodists continue to hold that homosexual practice is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Michael Trice, an ecumenical officer of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, noted that if partnered homosexuals in the ELCA want to serve in a United Methodist congregation, The United Methodist Church can say to them “we are sorry but that does not fit our protocols.”

“Unity does not require uniformity in all cases,” said Trice. “It requires faithfulness to the Gospel, honesty with our Christian partners, and wherever we can share a sense of mission and service in the world.”

The agreement with the ELCA is UMC’s first full communion relationship outside the Methodist tradition. The ELCA, meanwhile, has full communion pacts with The Episcopal Church, Moravian Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ.

By Joshua A. Goldberg – Christian Post Reporter

S. Korea Mulls Limits on Missionary Travel to Middle East

Times – Ruth Gledhill

Tony Blair condemns pleasure for pleasure’s sake

Tony Blair today condemned the pursuit of pleasure as ‘an end in itself’. He made the case against individualism, linking it to the present financial crisis. He was speaking in Rimini this afternoon at the much-heralded Communion and Liberation movement conference. Read the recent blog by SPUC director John Smeaton for a taste of the delicate terrain into which he is stepping. Smeaton sent an open letter to the organisers urging them to revoke the invitation. MaryMagdalen also suggested this was the meeting to miss.

Smeaton wrote: ‘Remember: This is the man favoured by the British Government to become president of the European Union (EU). An Obama-Blair alliance imposing its “pro-choice” culture of death worldwide has been described thus by leading Vatican scholar Monsignor Michel Schooyans:

“What the analysis of Barack Obama’s decisions and Tony Blair’s project reveals is that an alliance is coming between two converging intentions, one aimed at subjugating law and the other at subjugating religion. This is the new version of the two-headed eagle. Law and religion are exploited to ‘legitimize’ anything at all.”

In fact Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation is trying to do the opposite of what Smeaton suggests. Blair is trying to resurrect the reputation of religion, to develop and promote its potential to engineer peace rather than war. He is doing this, among other ways, through extraordinary programmes involving schools and young people around the world. But he perhaps didn’t help himself or his foundation’s mission with his recent comments on homosexuality and the Catholic Church.

He steered clear of any such controversies this afternoon.

He said: ‘The limits to individualism are in one sense, plain. We only need to contemplate the financial crisis to understand that the pursuit of maximum short-term profit, without proper regard to the communal good, is a mistake and leads to neither profit nor good. Yet, at a deeper level, the case against a purely individualistic or materialistic philosophy has to be made. Young people today have access to technology, to opportunity, to experiences good and bad on a scale my generation never knew and my father’s generation would find fantastical, like something out of science fiction.

‘The danger is clear: that pursuit of pleasure becomes an end in itself. It is here that Faith can step in, can show us a proper sense of duty to others, responsibility for the world around us, can lead us to, as the Holy Father calls it “Caritas in Veritate.”

He also made the case for the compatibility between reason and religion, a theme in debate at the moment with the coming release of Richard Dawkins’ new book, previewed and debated in The Times in the last few days.

Tony Blair said: ‘Too often religion is seen as a source of conflict and division. It is this manifestation that allows the aggressive secularism in part of the West to gain traction. Show instead how Faith is standing up for justice, for solidarity across peoples and nations, and how it is doing so with those of other Faiths and we show the true face of God’s love, mercy and compassion.

‘This is surely the role of Faith in modern times. To do what it alone can do. To achieve what neither a person, nor a state, nor a community, on their own or even together, can achieve. To represent God’s Truth, not limited by human frailty, or by the interests of the state or by the transient mores of a community, however well intentioned; but to let that Truth bestow on us humility, love of neighbour, and the true knowledge that indeed passes all understanding.

‘This is Faith, not as superstition, not as an insurance against life’s pitfalls, but Faith as the salvation of the human condition.

‘Faith not as magic, not as an escape from life’s complexities, but Faith as purpose in life. Faith, not as a mystery we seek to solve; but Faith as a mystery which expresses the limitations of the human mind.

‘Faith and Reason are in alliance, not opposition.’

What’s my view of it?

Parts of his speech read strangely like an exposition of the Protestant work ethic, although perhaps that is just transference on my part, writing this post while still technically on holiday.

But I must confess to inordinate pleasure, to the point of pleasure for its own sake, in the translation of Tony Blair from politics to religion. It’s great to have this new bishop on the block.

Read the whole speech here.

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.

NEW YORK, August 26, 2009 (C-FAM.org)- A UN human rights committee recently told UN member states they must grant broad new human rights on the basis of “sexual orientation and gender identity.” By making sweeping changes to their national laws, policies and changing practices and attitudes within families and cultural institutions, or else they will be in “violation” of their obligations under international law.

The document, called “General Comment 20,” was released on July 2nd by the committee responsible for monitoring compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Going well beyond putting an end to criminal penalties against homosexuality or stopping violence and unjust discrimination, it claims that two new anti-discrimination categories exist even though sovereign states have repeatedly rejected these same categories in open UN debates.

In those debates, nations expressed concern that since the terms “sexual orientation and gender identity” are not recognized or defined in international law, the new category could be used to impose limitations on freedoms of speech, religion and conscience as well as marriage laws and school curricula.

Indeed, the committee asserts that changes must include “a State’s constitution, laws and policy documents,” as well as “measures to attenuate or suppress conditions that perpetuate discrimination” including “employment in educational or cultural institutions,” as well as “families, workplaces, and other sectors of society.” Measures must remain in place until such a time “when substantive equality has been substantially achieved.” No definition of or standards for measuring “substantive equality” are provided.

The non-discrimination article says that states party to the treaty agree to “guarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenant will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, color, sex, language, religion, political identity, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

The committee asserts that “a flexible approach to the ground of ‘other status’ is thus needed” and “‘other status’ as recognized in article 2, paragraph 2, includes sexual orientation.” “Gender identity,” the general comment goes on to state, “is recognized as among the prohibited grounds of discrimination; for example, persons who are transgender, transsexual or intersex.”

The idea that gender identity and sexual orientation are “recognized as among the prohibited grounds of discrimination” is one of the most hotly contested issues in UN social policy debates. Liberal governments have repeatedly attempted to gain consensus on the issue but have so far been defeated. No binding UN document includes sexual orientation or gender identity among protected non-discrimination categories.

For support of its re-definition, the committee cites the Yogyakarta Principles , a highly controversial 2007 manifesto authored by activists and UN human rights officials which re-interprets 29 existing human rights to include homosexuality. The unofficial document asserts that nations who are party to UN human rights treaties are already obligated to grant broad homosexual rights or else they are in violation of international law.

The committee of appointed “experts” has no enforcement capability. However, nations report to the committee which then publishes reports on whether the government is properly implementing the treaty. Their views are increasingly used by sympathetic jurists, government officials and activist to pressure their governments to change laws and policies.

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “Question with boldness.” That is the motto of radio host and FOX News television host Glenn Beck, who says he asks questions no different than ordinary Americans – he just has an army of researchers to help him explore these questions. But what the question explores is the disturbing relationship between eugenics, Nazism, and the imposition of Obama’s health care plan upon the United States.

Like the old adage “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it,” Beck has looked back to the past to get a glimpse of the future. Throughout the past few weeks, Beck has given considerable attention to the Obama Administration centralizing power under the Executive Branch away from Congress through the appointment of more than 31 powerful “Czars” or “special policy advisors” as the Administration prefers to call them.

Beck argues that the Obama administration’s appointment of czars unaccountable to Congress, ramming massive legislation through Congress, and especially his health-care plan, bear close resemblance to how Germany’s National Socialists consolidated overwhelming powers under the executive led by Adolf Hitler in such a way that strangled democracy in Germany.

Although many people remember the National Socialists for their brutal extermination of the Jews during World War II, Western leaders like Winston Churchill had condemned National Socialism as a regime contrary to the very root of Christian civilization and “guided by the lights of perverted science.”

The question Beck asks is, why does Obama surround himself with so many advisors to reform health-care, who do not believe all human lives have equal value?” And one of Obama’s czars believes that even after birth, a child is not yet human.

Roots of Nazi Eugenics

“They tried to figure out how much is a life worth and put a price on how much each individual is worth,” said Beck, making clear that the logical conclusion is that some lives are worth more than others.

The roots of Germany’s eugenics program, however, began in England and the United States. Beck traces its beginning with the social progressives creating laws mandating compulsory sterilization for groups which the state deemed “procreation inadvisable”: such as the destitute, criminals, and the mentally disabled, some of the most vulnerable members of society. Illinois passed the first compulsory sterilization law in 1907, and more than 30 other states would follow before the Nazis rise to power in Germany.

One of the most egregious cases of this type of human rights violation is Buck v. Bell in 1927. In that case, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ruled that Virginia was right to sterilize Carrie Buck against her will because, “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Buck, however, was poor but not mentally disabled. Buck’s sister Doris was also sterilized forcibly when she was hospitalized for appendicitis, but she never found out why she could not have children until 1980.

Beck said that “no one is saying that eugenics is coming” or the “master race,” but a lesson should be drawn from Germany, which descended down the dark road of perpetuating crimes against humanity once they had accepted the principle that there was “Lebensunwertes Leben” or “life unworthy of life.”

Nazi Germany: Cutting Costs By Making Judgments on Quality of Life

For Beck, the idea of “life unworthy of life” gets personal. His daughter has cerebral palsy and he tells his viewers that doctors told him that statistically she would never walk, talk, or feed herself.

“She went to college. They were wrong,” Beck says.

But Germany, which provided universal health care, began to view Germans with conditions like cerebral palsy as primarily a drain on health resources that could be allocated to healthier Germans. Beck choked up as he held a Nazi poster that featured a man with cerebral palsy and said it costs 60,000 Marks to keep him alive. Another poster said that the resources spent for one year on a mental institution could have built homes for Germans.

“What happened in Germany was that they could not afford health-care for all,” warns Beck.

Beck repeats that he does not mean to say that President Obama is building a euthanasia program, like Germany’s T4 program, which put to death around 70,000 human beings they deemed physically or mentally unfit. However, what Obama and his advisors have in common with Germany is the idea that some lives are worth more than others, and in the crisis of the Depression.

But the danger is that since Germany succumbed to National Socialism after its inflationary practices destroyed the economy in 2009, there is a real danger that the enormous national debt of the United States and its inflation of the money supply in order to stimulate the economy could lead to a similar collapse. Such a situation would create, amongst many other dire outcomes, near unavoidable rationing of healthcare.

“If there is a crisis what will they do? Whose voice will he hear?” asks Beck.

Beck says that answer lies with what President Obama himself said on the campaign trail: if one wants to know his policies, then pay attention to his advisors.

So when it comes to health-care reform: four advisors behind the effort deserve special attention: Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, Health Reform Policy Advisor; John Holdren, Science Czar; Cass Sunstein, the Regulatory Czar; and Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar.

Another article will detail Beck’s unusually frank and alarming revelations about Obama’s advisors – revelations made on his Fox television program that is skyrocketing in popularity and which Obama supporters are frantically attempting to shut down.

See Part 2

Beck to the Future II: Three Scary ObamaCare “Czars”

See Part 3

Beck to the Future III: “Quality of Life” Rationing Links Nazi Doctors and ObamaCare Experts

Kirkuk, Iraq, Aug 27, 2009 / 08:24 pm (CNA).- Louis Sako, Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk, has said that Iraqi Christians are facing “bad days” as “ineffective” security cannot prevent criminality and violence targeting Christian minorities. Many of the Christians who remain are in such fear that they too want to leave Iraq, he said.

The future of Christianity in Iraq, even in the short term, now “hangs in the balance,” Archbishop Sako said in a phone interview with the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Christians lack the protection of militia and have become “easy targets” for criminals, he reported.

Violence and the lack of jobs and services have encouraged many Christians to leave. There are now only 300 Christian families in southern Iraq and less than 400,000 Christians in Iraq as a whole. Within the past decade, their numbers have declined by 750,000.

In the northern city of Mosul, a former Christian heartland, many Christian families are “too afraid to come back.”

At one point in the interview, Archbishop Sako warned of rising extremism.

“Iraq is going to a narrow form of Islam,” he commented.

“I feel more pessimistic now than ever before. We do not have the same hope that we had before,” he told ACN. “In fact I am not seeing any signs of hope for the future. Our whole future hangs in the balance.

“We are experiencing bad days. Every group involved in criminal activity seems to be active.”

Archbishop Sako called Iraq’s security system “ineffective” and “unprofessional.”

“The government and the police are doing their best but they are incapable of controlling the situation,” he reported, saying that Christians are generally being attacked not because they are Christian but because they are seen to be defenseless.

Even one crime, abduction or killing makes the whole community want to move, he reported.

The archbishop spoke from Kirkuk, ten days after a Christian father of three was shot dead and a doctor was abducted on his way home in the city.

The turmoil is not localized to one part of Iraq.

“Every day, there are explosions – in Baghdad, Mosul, so many different places,” he added.

In July, militants attacked seven churches in Baghdad, killing and injuring dozens. Last week nearly 100 were killed in a series of attacks.

“Living in this climate, the Christian people are afraid. They are really worried. Despite what we tell them, encouraging them to stay, they want to leave,” Archbishop Sako said.

He reported that the people have lost patience with the country’s politicians. The prelate also called on Western countries to pressure Iraqi political groups to reconcile and try to reduce conflict and restore law and order.

“There can be no proper security without a real reconciliation. The only people who seem to be benefiting from the situation at the moment are the criminals. This has got to change,” he explained.

Archbishop Sako noted the crucial importance of interfaith work for coexistence between Christians and Muslims. While the archbishop is involved in initiatives in Kirkuk, such as hosting a Ramadan dinner this weekend, they are generally not replicated elsewhere in the country.

The work is small scale and involves individuals rather than the large groups crucial for attitude changes.

Church leaders and Christian politicians are also not doing enough to cooperate to confront common problems, Archbishop Sako told ACN.