Ben Ayers

Anyone who knows me also knows that I am resolutely atheist. After this last year – in which I lost my father and a friend before they had achieved what most would consider a ‘good innings’ – my atheism has been cemented further.

Despite my godlessness I am still in awe of people whose faith is so strong that it gives them a superhuman fearlessness.

One such person I would put in that category is Canon Andrew White, an Anglican vicar from the UK who is based in downtown Baghdad. The so called ’Vicar of Baghdad’ features in a documentary to be screened on ITV later this month.

Canon White’s church, St George’s, just a mile outside Baghdad’s highly protected Green Zone, is the only Anglican church in Iraq. There he ministers to all who are brave enough to come – and his mission is not to judge or proselytise.

Many members of his congregation have been victimised for their beliefs – tortured, kidnapped or even killed. Andrew lost 11 of his evangelical staff when they went missing on the way back from Jordan – all are unaccounted for. Andrew himself has been hijacked, kidnapped, held at gunpoint and attacked – “just the usual things,” he says. He has to travel in a 20 strong armed convoy just to go to church.

White is the President of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East and has become a highly effective intermediary between Iraq’s power-brokers, the coalition forces and the region’s indigenous warlords and insurgents, which to describe as no mean feat is an understatement akin to stating that the Blitz left Londoners a bit nervy.

On Thursday Andrew is giving an interview to the Times and I am pleased to say that I will be going along too. I am more intrigued to meet him than anyone who has ever featured in a TV programme which I have been promoting. Aside from his charisma and the jollity with which he operates in the midst of truly appalling conditions, his spirit and faith in reconciliation is off the scale. If the average optimist like myself has a glass that’s half full, then Canon White’s is positively overflowing.