Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel official statement
Sydney Stabbing of a Bishop
Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed by a young Muslim extremist in the middle of a church service in Sydney last Sunday. Immediately after the stabbing, the Bishop expressed his forgiveness for this young man.
In some media reports, Bishop Emmanuel was blamed for provoking this stabbing in comments he made about Islam, when comparing Islam to Christianity.
For instance, in a December 2023 podcast, Bishop Emmanuel said, “Jesus Christ is the only God… Let me ask you my dear Muslim, if you are claiming Isa (Jesus) as a prophet, then how come all the other prophets you believe in… how come none of the Old Testament prophets were referred to as the son of God?”
The attacker himself spoke of this motive straight after the attack:
Chilling footage taken moments after the teenager allegedly stabbed bishop Emmanuel shows the 16-year-old smiling and taunting a group of men attempting to pin him to the ground, while speaking in Arabic. Translated to English, the 16-year-old blamed the bishop for "getting involved in my religion".
"If he [the Bishop] didn’t get himself involved in my religion, if he hadn’t spoken about my prophet, I wouldn’t have come here," the teenager said, according to a translation reported by The Guardian.
"If he just spoke about his own religion, I wouldn’t have come." The teen then turns his face to the camera and flashes what's being described on social media as an "evil grin," prompting an enraged response from one of his captors heard in the video.
Freedom of speech means freedom to criticise others’ beliefs.
If Christianity is true, by the way, then it means that other religions are not true, so if we are to live in a democracy where freedom of speech means anything at all, then we need to be tolerant of others’ speech even when we find it difficult or disagree with it completely. The danger of kowtowing to Muslims’ desire to control and censor whatever is said about Islam or Mohammed or the Quran, is that they will take the West’s compliance as submission, which politically speaking is not a wise course of action. As the lockdowns and vaccination mandates demonstrate (in a different but comparable situation), when you comply with a bully, you only make him stronger.
Christians have been very tolerant to criticism for the past two hundred years in fact; so if Muslims are living in Australia they also need to be able to accept public criticism of their religious beliefs and criticism of the Quran.
The criticism of the Bible by scholars for the past two hundred years has only resulted in a stronger scholarship and a much greater sense of the Bible’s historical reliability, for anyone who is able to look into these scholarly debates dispassionately.
Responding with violence would have been counter-productive for us: it was extremely beneficial in the long run for Christians to respond with facts and arguments, research, archaeology, and truth. If there are some Islamic people who cannot respond to criticism without violence, then one feels that the arguments for their religion must be very weak, for if the evidence for Islam was strong, they would not need violence to defend their religion.
Australia’s esafety commissioner orders the attack video taken down.
Australia’s esafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, an American who was offered a place in the CIA but ultimately decided that censoring the internet would be a more useful thing to do with her life, ordered the video of Bishop Emmanuel’s stabbing to be taken down from X(twitter) around the world (not just in Australia).
In Monday evening in an urgent last-minute federal court hearing, the court ordered a two-day injunction against X to hide posts globally containing the footage of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on 15 April. The eSafety commissioner had previously directed X to remove the posts, but X had only blocked them from access in Australia pending a legal challenge.
Elon Musk disagrees
Elon Musk responded by taking the video down on Australian X(twitter) but not internationally, while also protesting strongly against this attempted violation of freedom of speech in Australia and pointing out that it is ludicrous to be asking X to censor the video in countries where Australia has no jurisdiction.
Musk tweeted, “If ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?” “We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA.”
But the Australian overlords want to censor everyone; the whole globe.
Well of course they should, the Australian government responded, saying in effect, we are the rightful overlords of earth, obey us you pathetic minions! — if we say something is misinformation, then you are not allowed to watch it, ants — you deserve to go to prison you pathetic bacteria if you disagree with us! <satire alert> — (i.e. this is not what they said, literally, but it is what they meant, I would argue.)
For instance, Jacqui Lambie, an Australian senator, said in a television interview on Sky News on Tuesday that Elon Musk should be thrown in gaol (Austr. spelling, meaning jail, prison) for not wanting to obey the global injunction. She said he was an 'absolute friggin' disgrace'; “(Elon Musk) is a social media knob with no social conscience. Someone like that should be in gaol… I don't give a stuff about the platform… When you want to lead by example, it has to happen from here, so start switching from X.”
Meanwhile the Prime Minister and presumptive overlord of the global internet, Anthony Albanese, also weighed in on the debate, also condemning Elon Musk:
Anthony Albanese on Tuesday said Musk was “a bloke who’s chosen ego and showing violence over common sense”.
“Australians will shake their head when they think that this billionaire is prepared to go to court fighting for the right to sow division and to show violent videos,” he told Sky News. “He is in social media, but he has a social responsibility in order to have that social licence.”
He told the ABC that Musk was “an arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law”.
“What the eSafety commissioner is doing is doing her job to protect the interests of Australians. And the idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out of touch Mr Musk is,” he said.
To be fair, the video of the attack is fairly disturbing; even so, they do not appear to be censoring other disturbing videos, such as the September 11th attack, for instance. One could certainly argue that the video should have a content warning on it.
The Bishop himself does not want the video censored.
But the man who was the victim of the crime does not think the video of the attack should be censored.
In Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel’s official statement, which is well worth listening to, as he is certainly a man of prayer and someone who loves and prays for everyone, he says, “My Lord always taught me to love everyone, to pray for everyone and to speak the truth as is.”
And the Bishop tells us that the very identity of the human being is bound up with freedom of speech and freedom of expressing religious beliefs.
We need to understand one thing: the very dignity of the human being, the very identity of the human being, regardless of what our race is our colour, our gender, our faith and religious background, we are human beings and as human beings we need to love and respect everyone.
And at the same time that human identity to be always protected and preserved. It is the very identity which is our God-given identity and that is to have the freedom of speech and freedom of expressing their religious beliefs or whatever beliefs they have without being exposed to any violence any terrorist attack or being persecuted for just expressing their belief. The moment we oppress this very freedom of speech and religion we are losing the very human identity and dignity as well as a Christian.
If someone, if another human being, does not believe in what I believe in, if another human being attacks my my faith and attacks my Lord, that does not give me the right to go and cause harm to that person; this is inhumane at a human level it is unacceptable and unjustifiable. Christianity gets attacked all the time but that does not give me the right just because someone has a different point of view and a different belief system, as a Christian I do not have the right to carry a weapon or a inflict any harm to that person; this is not acceptable, period.
I just wish to say this — my prayer goes for the person who has done this act; I will always love this person — I've said it before and I'll say it again — he's my son and he will always be my son — he'll always be in my heart and in my prayers and my thoughts and whoever was behind this I forgive them all in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Full transcript below. Here is the video of his official statement:
The full statement of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit one God Amen
This is Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel. I just would like to say a few words in reference to the E safety commissioner and X-corp matter.
I do acknowledge the Australian government's desire to have the videos removed because of their graphic nature. I do not condone any acts of terrorism or violence however noting our God-given right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion I'm not opposed to the videos remaining on social media. I would be of great concern if people use the attack on me to serve their own political interests to control free speech. My beloveds I'm talking to everyone as a simple human being like everyone else that lives on the face of this globe: this simple human being happens to be a Christian and a very proud one and by the grace of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will always be proud to be a Christian. My Lord always taught me to love everyone, to pray for everyone and to speak the truth as is.
We need to understand one thing: the very dignity of the human being, the very identity of the human being, regardless of what our race is our colour, our gender, our faith and religious background, we are human beings and as human beings we need to love and respect everyone.
And at the same time that human identity to be always protected and preserved. It is the very identity which is our God-given identity and that is to have the freedom of speech and freedom of expressing their religious beliefs or whatever beliefs they have without being exposed to any violence any terrorist attack or being persecuted for just expressing their belief. The moment we oppress this very freedom of speech and religion we are losing the very human identity and dignity as well as a Christian.
If someone, if another human being, does not believe in what I believe in, if another human being attacks my my faith and attacks my Lord, that does not give me the right to go and cause harm to that person; this is inhumane at a human level it is unacceptable and unjustifiable. Christianity gets attacked all the time but that does not give me the right just because someone has a different point of view and a different belief system, as a Christian I do not have the right to carry a weapon or a inflict any harm to that person; this is not acceptable, period.
I just wish to say this — my prayer goes for the person who has done this act; I will always love this person — I've said it before and I'll say it again — he's my son and he will always be my son — he'll always be in my heart and in my prayers and my thoughts and whoever was behind this I forgive them all in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Let us not forget as Australians — I say this with absolute confidence and from the bottom of my heart — I'm a very proud Aussie — tomorrow we'll be celebrating the remembrance of Anzac Day. We Salute those Warriors who gave their life — who sacrificed their life for the very human identity and human dignity and that is to keep the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion — always given to that human to live and to be able to share with others — I salute those Warriors who gave their life for Australia and for the very identity of Australia. I love this country — I'll always pray for my beloved country Australia — and again I will say I'm a very proud Aussie — the beauty of Australia is a multicultural (country that) embraces all colours all races all religions and keeps that freedom of speech and freedom of religion readily available at hand for whoever wishes to express or worship in whichever way they wish to do so I do not wish for what has happened to me to be used as a way, as a means, to be a threat to the very human freedom and freedom of religion — we need to forgive one another — we need to pray for one another — we may disagree with one another — but that does not make us enemies to the Australian government.
We may agree and we may disagree on certain things but that doesn't mean I don't pray for you or I don't love you
To Mr Albanese the prime minister of this nation whether I agree with you or disagree I can always show you, you will always be in my prayers, and there will never be nothing but love no matter what happens — and this is the way we need to keep and and protect that human integrity that whether we agree or disagree the love and respect should never be compromised at all.
At any given time I pray for everyone, I love everyone. I'm a proud Aussie but above all I'm a very proud Christian.
Jesus Christ is my Lord, my God, my Saviour, my Redeemer: this will never change by his grace and his mercy and I thank the Lord Jesus for always teaching me to love even those who have hurt me
It is something you can only live, you can only encounter, you can only taste, when you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and God.
May the Almighty God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, one God in nature, one God in essence; in Jesus’ mighty name I pray that this country of ours Australia is always blessed and protected and the people who live in this blessed country of ours are always in good health and in good spirits — may the Lord Jesus bestow his peace.
In this troubled world, we pray for Israel, we pray for Palestine, we pray wherever there is trouble where there where there wherever there is war wherever there is famine, wherever there is natural disasters, we pray for the afflicted, we pray for those who are forgotten, we pray for everyone who is in need, and we should never lose track that no matter what happens and no matter how many times we disagree or agree no matter how many times we offend one another, we should always love and pray for one another.
This is all I had to say in relation to this matter.
And again I make this emphasis the human freedom of speech and freedom of religion should always be preserved and never to be compromised.
May God who is Jesus Christ of Nazareth — as far as this Christian is concerned - bless protect our beloved Australia and may the remembrance of Anzac be always alive in our our hearts and our minds and our thoughts — that we have these great Aussies that gave their life up for the very preservation and protection of human freedom of speech and religion.
God bless you all and I pray that you're always always in good health and in good spirits and may the Lord Jesus bestow his peace in the entire globe and the entire world
Amen
God bless
This is his pastoral message:
PASTORAL MESSAGE
In The name of The Father and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit. One God. Amen.
Our beloved faithful’s and followers of our Holy Church,
We greet you in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, praying for your physical and spiritual wellbeing.
In our time and age, we believe the most important and fundamental insight is coming into the truth. The world bombards the human race with so much information, quite often we lose our orientation in discerning the lie from the truth. Our Lord invites us all even today to come into the truth, for this truth is not a statement being written, is not a speech given, it’s not a song being sang but rather this truth is the person of Christ “I am The way, The Truth and The Life” – John 14:6.
Let us all make this commitment to come back once again and embrace this Truth who is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Yours in Christ,
H.G. Mar Mari Emmanuel
Bishop of Christ The Good Shepherd Church
A man of God. Wise words indeed from Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.