Florida pastor Terry Jones has garnered world-wide publicity with his call for an International Burn the Koran Day on Sept. 11. None of the coverage has been positive.
The liberal mainstream media instantly seized on Jones as new evidence for its stereotypical bias against fundamentalist, charistmatic Christians as narrow-minded, ignorant and bigoted Philistines.
The conservative precincts of the media have mostly focused on both repudiating Jones’ obvious lunacy and making the point that he has the right to remove all doubt about the issue by going forward with the burning, just as do those who, for example, burn the American flag.
Both approaches miss the main point entirely. That’s curious because it doesn’t take a seminary degree to figure out that Jones’ attitude is exactly the opposite of the Christian faith.
In His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:12), Jesus famously said “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Does Jones really not understand that his burning Korans is not an expression of Christ’s injunction?
Burning Korans is an act of violence, pure and simple. Whatever message Jones might think this act will convey to Muslims, what they will surely hear is that they are justified in responding with what they view as equivalent violence. In the Muslim world, that often involves the swift and public application of a sharp steel edge to the neck of the offender.
If that doesn’t clear things up for Jones, maybe Proverbs 25:21-22 will do the trick: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For you will heap burning coals on his head, And the LORD will reward you.”
Clearly, instead of encouraging his parishioners to join him in burning Korans, Jones could demonstrate the kind of conduct called for by Christ and the Proverbs by doing acts of kindness specifically for needy Muslims. There are millions of impoverished Muslims around the world, so it ought not be difficult for Jones to find those who are hungry and thirsty.
In the meantime, how about those of us in the media stop helping every whacky media manipulator who comes along looking for a microphone, television cameras, reporters notebooks, and 15 minutes of ill-gotten fame? They have a right to say anything, no matter how stupid or outrageous, but that doesn’t mean we have to cover them.
UPDATE: Franklin Graham, other evangelical leaders ask Jones to stop
Excellent report in The Washington Post on appeals by Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, and a host of other evangelical Christian leaders to Jones to drop the planned Koran burning. More here from Yahoo on Graham statement and those of others, including President Obama.
And a hat tip to Examiner columnist Cal Thomas for pointing out this recent discussion by Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas, of Christian guilt in the Inquisition, the Ground Zero Mosque controversy, and the intensely controversial role of pedophillia in Islam.
For the context of Jeffress’ statement on pedophillia, see this report by Stanford University journalism professor and former Pulitizer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Joel Brinkley, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle. Also, see this AP report on the problem in Yemen.
