The Church in Peshawar

Christmas service in St. John's Cathedral in Peshawar, Pakistan

Remarkably, I've known 2 people in the course of my life from Peshawar in Pakistan.  One is an old friend who now lives in St. Louis, MO.  The other I knew only briefly as a coworker in the mural biz.  My fellow mural artist was a Christian from Peshawar.  He was an artist and sign painter who specialized in painting movie ads back in Peshawar.  Since figurative art is forbidden to Muslims, most of the sign painters are Christian.

St. John's suffered a devastating double-suicide bombing that killed at least 80 people, the worst attack on Pakistan's very small Christian minority in memory.  For centuries, Peshawar's Christians lived peaceably with their Muslim neighbors (there has been a Christian presence in the city since the arrival of Nestorian and Armenian Christians almost a thousand years ago).

My prayers for Peshawar's Christians in this very dark hour.

EXTRA:

Simon Dawson in the comments section of Thinking Anglicans draws the link between the American drone war in that part of Pakistan and this attack on the Christian community.  On one level, he has a point, though Taliban leaders lumping in Pakistan's very old Christian community with the USA is about as mindless and/or cynical as Fox News lumping in a small community of Bengali Muslims who for 40 years kept a small mosque in an old commercial building 2 blocks from the World Trade Center with Al Quaeda or the Taliban .  It doesn't look like the anti-Christian hatred because Amerika! business is selling well with the Pakistani public.  They seem more appalled and furious.
Still, it might be a good idea to review that drone policy.