Mick Hartley

The BBC reports on that latest Sydney knife attack:

Australian police have declared Monday's stabbing at a Sydney church a religiously motivated "terrorist act".

A 16-year-old boy was arrested after a bishop, a priest and churchgoers were attacked during mass at the Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church.

At least four people suffered "non-life-threatening" injuries, police say. The attacker was also hurt.

The incident was captured on a church livestream and quickly triggered unrest in the suburb of Wakeley.

Australian police define terror offences as being ideologically motivated. Investigations are still under way, but they say they are satisfied this is a case of religious extremism.

We're left to fill in the gaps. What religion inspired this young man? No one can say.

The Spectator helps out with information the BBC felt unable to share:

An arch-conservative in a conservative church, Bishop Emmanuel is known for attracting controversy. His views on social issues, notably homosexuality, are biblically hardline and, while having been supportive of Palestinians in the war in Gaza, he is on the record as having questioned the validity of Islam as a faith. During the pandemic, the bishop expressed scepticism about vaccines and lockdown restrictions.

Whether any of these views motivated the still-unidentified 16-year-old boy to attack Bishop Emmanuel remains unclear. But a video of the alleged attacker appears to show him calling out, in Arabic, ‘if he (the bishop) didn’t swear at my prophet I wouldn’t be here.’

We're beginning to get the picture.