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FINDING SOME PEACE ON THE FRONT LINE OF FAITH - BARONESS COX
by Nick Wyke
The Times (London)
October 14, 2006, Saturday
Baroness Cox talks to Nick Wyke about risking everything for the
Christian faith.
WHILE most lords and ladies of the Upper House were sunning themselves
somewhere safe during the August recess, Caroline Cox made her 61st
visit to Nagorno Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan. She
went back again last month. In the past 15 years or so she has been to
war-torn Southern Sudan 28 times and at least 15 times to Burma, not
to mention countless visits to Nigeria, Indonesia and even North Korea.
A former deputy speaker of the House of Lords, Baroness Cox has
been sentenced in absentia to five years in prison in Sudan and
has had a price on her head in Azerbaijan. There are not many
69-year-old grandmothers who would put their life on the line to
visit "forgotten people in forgotten lands". On her travels to
meet persecuted Christians, she has been shot down in a helicopter,
targeted by Jihad warriors and seen the sort of carnage most of us
will never see mediated through television let alone in the flesh.
For Lady Cox the media is an inadequate informer. She is one of those
rare people who likes to see things for herself, choosing to witness
not only the brutality of religiously motivated warfare but also its
"miracles of grace".
It is this suffering and joy that she has recorded in Cox's Book of
Modern Saints and Martyrs. The book, building on the tradition of
John Foxe's accounts of Christian martyrs first published in 1563,
catalogues the stories of Christians prepared to risk all for their
faith gathered during her many travels to remote conflict zones around
the world.
It is not an easy read. We hear of walking 12 miles of scorched earth
littered with corpses of women and children in Sudan; of beheaded
teenage girls in Indonesia; and religious persecution in the shape
of rape, torture and murder elsewhere.
But we also hear the story of 15,000 people fleeing violence in East
Timor, who are fed for a week from one bag of rice by Sister Maria
Lourdes; and remarkable instances of courage, such as when Lady Cox sat
beside the Rev Rinaldy Damanik in an Indonesian court and heard him
choose the scaffold over renouncing his faith (he was later released
after serving a prison sentence, during which time he handed out to
injured Muslim inmates plasters that contained verses from the Bible).
"When I meet people who could be martyrs, who are living at that
front line of faith, I'm just so humbled and inspired because of their
amazing resilience and their joy in spite of their horrific suffering,"
says Lady Cox.
Her book poses perhaps the key question of our age, or of any age:
where can we find a peace which the troubles of this world cannot
destroy? And the answer it seems, paradoxically, is very often in
the middle of those troubles.
"All around us the search is on to fill the spiritual vacuum. The
real heroes in my book somehow find peace caught up in trial and
tribulation. God is, as the Psalmist said, a very present help in
trouble. We who are not at that stage of suffering and deprivation
and horror seem to find it much harder to experience," says Lady Cox.
Does she not get scared amid such horrors? "I regularly have my fit
of faithless, fearful dread before a visit. In Nagorno Karabakh in
the early Nineties I was constantly under fire and told I was nearly
killed 22 times. It's only natural to shrink from that prospect.
"But I'm not the sort of Christian who believes that if you pray
everything will be all right. You have to be prepared to pray the
Gethsemane prayer: 'Lord I'd love to come home to my loved ones but
let not my will but your will be done'. You may not come back, but
the spiritual riches outweigh any risk that's being taken."
As she confesses, her hands-on approach is a little unorthodox -as is
her definition of a saint as someone who is willing to die for his or
her faith but while she remains blessed with good health she feels
compelled to act. "Faith without deeds..." is one of her favourite
lines from the Bible.
A Third Order Franciscan Anglican who will take Communion wherever
she can, Lady Cox gets very frustrated with aspects of church life
in the West. " 'Comfortable Christianity' depresses and irritates
me immensely. Internal debates and distractions about sex and the
latest worship song are relatively trivial compared to someone on
the front line of faith who is going to make the ultimate sacrifice
and is looking for prayer and practical assistance."
Shrugging off the suggestion that she is viewed by many as a heroine
herself, perhaps even a saint by her own definition, she says:
"I feel immensely privileged to have the opportunity to visit the
real heroes living the life. The way I can respond to their heroism
makes my spiritual stature feel microscopic. At least I can be their
voice and tell their stories to inspire others."
She is keen, in particular, to influence young people and does a lot
of work with them through her own organisation, the Humanitarian Aid
Relief Trust. One of the book's goals was to give them some role
models. "Many young people don't find church in the West to be a
convincing, compelling witness. There's nothing wrong with surfing
on Bondi Beach but if only they would find time to visit one or two
of these 'saints' and martyrs they would find it a life-changing
experience."
Martyrdom, of course, has a particular relevance in the light of the
current climate of terrorism and proliferation of the suicide bomber.
Did writing this book shed light on their motivation? Lady Cox
is clear to draw a distinction between the martyrs in her book and
suicide bombers. "Christian martyrdom is all premised on transforming
love, never on hate, revenge or bitterness. These people don't seek
martyrdom -but they have bravely persisted in their faith knowing
they may be martyred. So much of the rhetoric that accompanies the
suicide bombers is associated with real expressions of hatred.
Whether it's a justified resentment is another question."
So are Christians well placed to understand the ultimate sacrifice?
"Yes and no.
Christians can understand making the ultimate sacrifice for all they
believe in.
But there are two fundamental differences: the Christian martyr dies
in the hope that others may live, whereas the terrorist dies and
kills as many other people in the process as he or she can, at least
in recent cases."
Cox's Book of Modern Saints and Martyrs by Caroline Cox (Continuum,
£ 9.99) For more information about the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust
visit: www.hart-uk.org
Slavery: This Immoral Trade by Baroness Caroline Cox and Dr John Marks
(Monarch, £ 8.99) is published in October.
--Boundary_(ID_Ej/ciOD6wLfN4OxZYFhZnA)--
by Nick Wyke
The Times (London)
October 14, 2006, Saturday
Baroness Cox talks to Nick Wyke about risking everything for the
Christian faith.
WHILE most lords and ladies of the Upper House were sunning themselves
somewhere safe during the August recess, Caroline Cox made her 61st
visit to Nagorno Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan. She
went back again last month. In the past 15 years or so she has been to
war-torn Southern Sudan 28 times and at least 15 times to Burma, not
to mention countless visits to Nigeria, Indonesia and even North Korea.
A former deputy speaker of the House of Lords, Baroness Cox has
been sentenced in absentia to five years in prison in Sudan and
has had a price on her head in Azerbaijan. There are not many
69-year-old grandmothers who would put their life on the line to
visit "forgotten people in forgotten lands". On her travels to
meet persecuted Christians, she has been shot down in a helicopter,
targeted by Jihad warriors and seen the sort of carnage most of us
will never see mediated through television let alone in the flesh.
For Lady Cox the media is an inadequate informer. She is one of those
rare people who likes to see things for herself, choosing to witness
not only the brutality of religiously motivated warfare but also its
"miracles of grace".
It is this suffering and joy that she has recorded in Cox's Book of
Modern Saints and Martyrs. The book, building on the tradition of
John Foxe's accounts of Christian martyrs first published in 1563,
catalogues the stories of Christians prepared to risk all for their
faith gathered during her many travels to remote conflict zones around
the world.
It is not an easy read. We hear of walking 12 miles of scorched earth
littered with corpses of women and children in Sudan; of beheaded
teenage girls in Indonesia; and religious persecution in the shape
of rape, torture and murder elsewhere.
But we also hear the story of 15,000 people fleeing violence in East
Timor, who are fed for a week from one bag of rice by Sister Maria
Lourdes; and remarkable instances of courage, such as when Lady Cox sat
beside the Rev Rinaldy Damanik in an Indonesian court and heard him
choose the scaffold over renouncing his faith (he was later released
after serving a prison sentence, during which time he handed out to
injured Muslim inmates plasters that contained verses from the Bible).
"When I meet people who could be martyrs, who are living at that
front line of faith, I'm just so humbled and inspired because of their
amazing resilience and their joy in spite of their horrific suffering,"
says Lady Cox.
Her book poses perhaps the key question of our age, or of any age:
where can we find a peace which the troubles of this world cannot
destroy? And the answer it seems, paradoxically, is very often in
the middle of those troubles.
"All around us the search is on to fill the spiritual vacuum. The
real heroes in my book somehow find peace caught up in trial and
tribulation. God is, as the Psalmist said, a very present help in
trouble. We who are not at that stage of suffering and deprivation
and horror seem to find it much harder to experience," says Lady Cox.
Does she not get scared amid such horrors? "I regularly have my fit
of faithless, fearful dread before a visit. In Nagorno Karabakh in
the early Nineties I was constantly under fire and told I was nearly
killed 22 times. It's only natural to shrink from that prospect.
"But I'm not the sort of Christian who believes that if you pray
everything will be all right. You have to be prepared to pray the
Gethsemane prayer: 'Lord I'd love to come home to my loved ones but
let not my will but your will be done'. You may not come back, but
the spiritual riches outweigh any risk that's being taken."
As she confesses, her hands-on approach is a little unorthodox -as is
her definition of a saint as someone who is willing to die for his or
her faith but while she remains blessed with good health she feels
compelled to act. "Faith without deeds..." is one of her favourite
lines from the Bible.
A Third Order Franciscan Anglican who will take Communion wherever
she can, Lady Cox gets very frustrated with aspects of church life
in the West. " 'Comfortable Christianity' depresses and irritates
me immensely. Internal debates and distractions about sex and the
latest worship song are relatively trivial compared to someone on
the front line of faith who is going to make the ultimate sacrifice
and is looking for prayer and practical assistance."
Shrugging off the suggestion that she is viewed by many as a heroine
herself, perhaps even a saint by her own definition, she says:
"I feel immensely privileged to have the opportunity to visit the
real heroes living the life. The way I can respond to their heroism
makes my spiritual stature feel microscopic. At least I can be their
voice and tell their stories to inspire others."
She is keen, in particular, to influence young people and does a lot
of work with them through her own organisation, the Humanitarian Aid
Relief Trust. One of the book's goals was to give them some role
models. "Many young people don't find church in the West to be a
convincing, compelling witness. There's nothing wrong with surfing
on Bondi Beach but if only they would find time to visit one or two
of these 'saints' and martyrs they would find it a life-changing
experience."
Martyrdom, of course, has a particular relevance in the light of the
current climate of terrorism and proliferation of the suicide bomber.
Did writing this book shed light on their motivation? Lady Cox
is clear to draw a distinction between the martyrs in her book and
suicide bombers. "Christian martyrdom is all premised on transforming
love, never on hate, revenge or bitterness. These people don't seek
martyrdom -but they have bravely persisted in their faith knowing
they may be martyred. So much of the rhetoric that accompanies the
suicide bombers is associated with real expressions of hatred.
Whether it's a justified resentment is another question."
So are Christians well placed to understand the ultimate sacrifice?
"Yes and no.
Christians can understand making the ultimate sacrifice for all they
believe in.
But there are two fundamental differences: the Christian martyr dies
in the hope that others may live, whereas the terrorist dies and
kills as many other people in the process as he or she can, at least
in recent cases."
Cox's Book of Modern Saints and Martyrs by Caroline Cox (Continuum,
£ 9.99) For more information about the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust
visit: www.hart-uk.org
Slavery: This Immoral Trade by Baroness Caroline Cox and Dr John Marks
(Monarch, £ 8.99) is published in October.
--Boundary_(ID_Ej/ciOD6wLfN4OxZYFhZnA)--