Posts Tagged ‘9-11’

Pastor Terry Jones has General David Petraeus worried. Jones, and his congregants at the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida intend to hold an old-fashioned book burning. The bonfire is intended to commemorate those who lost their lives in the attack on 9-11, and, most importantly, to ignite a faith in Jesus among Muslims.

This is not the first time fire has been used as a tool by combatants in the Lord’s Army. Petraeus, who’s got no beef with Jesus, is rightly concerned about Jones’s plans to burn copies of the Koran as a means ministering the true message of Christ.

Petraeus said Monday that if Jones and his posse follow through with their plans to host a burning of the Holy Word of Islam, they could incite acts of violence toward U.S. Troops in Afghanistan. The Taliban will use such a demonstration for propaganda purposes, Petraeus predicted.

“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort,” he warned. “It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.”

But Jones remains resolute – he isn’t budging. “We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam. We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats.”

It’s a good old-fashioned case of tit-for-tat. We refuse to be controlled and dominated by the fears and threats of radical Islamics; instead, we’ll be controlled and manipulated by the fears and threats of our own choosing, thank you very much.  “Islam is of the devil”  t-shirts can be purchased on the church’s website, along with a book Jones penned himself titled with the same catchy phrase.

To his credit, Jones insists that he loves Muslims – he just takes issue with their religion. It is Jones’s sincerest hope that burning the Koran will hopefully persuade those Muslims he loves to see that the Koran is a “book of lies and that the only true salvation is in Jesus.”

Yeah, buddy, because acting the fool and ticking people off has always been an effective evangelical tool. Dove World Outreach considers itself a New Testament Church, which is odd, considering: Where exactly is it in the Scriptures that Jesus urged his followers to intimidate and demean others?

But lest you discount Jones as another backwoods Southern preacher, you should know that he is fully aware that his methodology isn’t going to be to everyone’s liking. In fact, Jones expects that burning the Koran will rile some folks up. Petraeus may very well be right — those offended by Jones’s actions may come looking for a fight.

“Islam has proven itself to be a violent religion and Mohammed promoted violence in the Koran,” Jones said.

Granted, all this posturing can be a tad confusing. It’s downright discombobulating, trying to separate the good guys from the bad guys when the good guys are the ones carrying the gasoline can. You kind of expect it to be the other way around, don’t you?

A good rule of thumb to remember is that the good guys carrying the torch always claim that Jesus has got their back.

There are well-meaning good-hearted people on both sides of the Ground Zero Mosque issue. I believe that, I really do.

It’s just hard right now to see that, what with the way the people are carrying on. If I were Frank Peretti writing This Presence Darkness, I might imagine that demons are dancing, delighted by all the ugly ways in which we can hate on one another.

I blame media. Insipid talk radio, incendiary yammering on the 24-7 boob tube, and a blogosphere that considers fact-checking a click over to Wikipedia.

On a trip to Seattle last week I heard one of those talk show hosts jawing on and on about how he was the lone defender of freedom for Americans and how he and his organization had filed a lawsuit to stop the building of a mosque at Ground Zero.

Fact check error one: There is no mosque planned to be built at Ground Zero.

It’s two blocks away.

But it’s hard to make an argument stick if every time a talk show host, blogger or TV personality has to say, “The mosque planned to be built two blocks from Ground Zero” rather than “The mosque at Ground Zero.”

The radio host made sure to let his listeners know that he stands between them and that wrong-headed President who favors putting the mosque at Ground Zero.

Never mind that President Obama hasn’t taken a position one way or another on whether the mosque should be built. Fact check error two: What he did say is that this country’s founding principals allow for a mosque to be built two blocks from Ground Zero.

Listen. I understand memorials. I visit the Wall in DC twice every year — Memorial Day and Veterans Day. I get why people are so emotional about them. A few years ago I asked a man who was protesting the war in Iraq to please go stand elsewhere — I suggested the steps of Congress since that’s where the war really began — because his presence at the Wall was upsetting to many of us there that day. He didn’t leave but he did move back out of sight.  

So I appreciate the emotion that has fueled this fray.

There was a time when I would have been out there holding up the placard, screaming like a banshee. Growing up I had loathed all things Vietnamese — the people, the country, the war. The way I saw it if it hadn’t been for them I would have had my father around.

Everything was so clearly defined in my “us” and “them” world. But it all got so messy that day I passed a Vietnamese Honor Guard standing in the rain at the Vietnam Memorial Wall. It was Veterans Day, 2002,  my first trip to the Wall. I went with all my biases, misconceptions and hatefulness fully intact.

When I walked past that honor guard, all my clearly defined boundaries came crumbling down. I cried that entire day. I wept not so much for the loss of my father as I wept for the years I had carried the burden that is misunderstanding. In a matter of a few short hours, I’d left behind the world of “us” and “them.”

In March 2003 I boarded a plane at LAX and flew to the country where my father took his last breath. It was there at the marketplace in Hoi An that I met a Vietnamese fellow who said to me, “I am like you.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“I, too, lost my father to that war.”

Prior to that encounter, I had not allowed myself to think of the Vietnamese children and the sufferings they had endured. Afterwards, I have looked upon every Vietnamese person as my brother, my sister, my mother, my father, my friend.

I think of them first and foremost when I think of the war in which my father died. I think of how the bodies of their soldiers were piled in heaps alongside the roadways, too numerous to bury. I think of how their widows never received any government benefits for their husbands’ deaths. I think of how these women prostituted themselves just to be able to feed their sons and daughters. I think of the European and American businessmen who allowed these women and girls to be exploited that way.

I think of the field near Dragon Mountain where Vietnamese locals watched as I built a rock memorial to honor my father. They couldn’t understand the words I spoke but I hope they understood the grace that had led me there to them.

I pray for the families who lost loved ones at Ground Zero.  I pray they come to understand what the Vietnamese taught me – that the best memorial we can build to our loved ones is not made out of concrete or stone but out of mercy and grace.  

I can’t think of any better way to do that than to build a house of worship because there is no greater answer to the hatred that fueled 9-11 than the voices of people united in prayer and praise.

Don’t stop with the mosque, build a house of worship on every block near Ground Zero. Then the demons can sit back and watch the angels dance.