Unhappy Eid to Pakistan's Lutherans

Did you know there was a Lutheran church in Pakistan? For about a hundred years now, as a matter of fact. In its present form, the Northern Diocese Mardan is part of the Church of Pakistan, a union church. Per Wikipedia, this makes it the only one of South Asia's union churches to include Lutherans. We expect that's why it isn't part of the LWF. But the diocese retains its Lutheran identity -- click the link here to check out its website, with the big Luther Rose sliding across the page. Its bishop is the Rt. Rev. Peter Majeed

Here's the problem. The Lutheran church building in Mardan was blown up on Sunday night. Services were over, if they had even been held, and the only people injured were night watchmen. (Click up top for a brief story).

The story, written in English bad enough to make interpretation a problem, tries to connect the bombing both to the second day of the Muslim holiday of Eid and to the already-aborted-by-Sunday Quran burning in Florida. Maybe those are genuine connections, maybe they are not; it is hard to know. Pakistan is a pretty wild place right now. We will say that blowing up a church is not the best way to encourage respect for one's own sacred texts.