St. George in the East Church in London was consecrated in 1729. It was designed by a student of Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor. Although badly damaged in WWII by the German Blitz, it was rebuilt in the 1960s.Michael Ainsworth, 57, is the priest at St. George in the East. While walking on the grounds of the church recently, he was attacked by three Asian youths when he asked them to be quiet.
They yelled "you fucking priest," knocked him to the ground, and punched him in the head. He was saved by some other youths who came to his assistance.
Fr. Ainsworth was taken to the hospital with deep cuts, bruising and two black eyes, where he was treated and released. Shortly after his release, he re-entered the hospital.
St. George in the East has been a target of violence previously. Not long ago, a brick was thrown through a window during a worship service. On another occasion, young people shouted "This should not be a church, this should be a mosque, you should not be here."
Violence is not committed only by Muslims, of course. For example, after the 2005 bombings in London, there were a number of attacks against Muslims. More recently, Muslim involvement in violence has been increasing, especially against Jews. Attacks on Christians are rather rare.
Question: Why would young Muslims want to damage a church or hurt a Christian priest? They didn't come out of the womb saying "I'm going to grow up and throw a brick through a church window," or "I think I'll go beat the crap out of a Christian priest when I'm big."
These acts derive from hatred that is taught in the home, or in the school, or in the mosque, or maybe all three. Christians and others are not off the hook, though, for too often they also are taught to hate in their home, or their church or their school.
Nothing will ever change until people decide, first of all, that we are of one race - the human race; and that we are all brothers and sisters; and that it is better to live in peace as a family than to try to destroy one another because of disagreements of faith, economics or politics.
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England has accepted a host of foreigners and has now found that they do not always behave as good English people are supposed to do. The Wahibi influence is evident in the mosques built with Saudi money and the Imams paid from the same purse. Hate is taught and will continue to be taught unless there is a way to stop it and not violate the principles of free speech. Other western nations have experienced similar problems. At some point, we all had better find the means to combat this or we will see race wars within our borders.
We could learn from the example of Israel over its almost 60 year existence, with daily attacks since its first day.
As always, after the Jews are attacked, some other group always is next! It never has failed throughout history.
Bob Poris
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