As someone who is always cold and seeking heat, there is rarely a fire that I do not love. However, the pastor in Gainesville, Florida who plans to hold a public Koran-burning on September 11 has me, well, incensed. Persons around the world, particularly in war zones, are pleading with the man to cancel the burning, saying that their lives would be endangered by the backlash.
Pastor Jones is the pastor of a church of 30 people. How has a person who has such a limited impact in his home community suddenly become a player on the world stage? He says that he is praying about whether to do it or not, but he said in a recent sermon, “What we’re doing has no middle of the road. You have to believe it is totally, totally God or absolutely of the devil.” Perhaps he received “amen”s from the couple of dozen people or so that may have been in the congregation that day, but I feel fairly confident that the voices of the angels were not chiming in.
It puts me in an awkward position, trying to respond to one person’s absolute conviction that he is right with my own conviction that he’s not. My parents have been quick to call me to task in the past if I say something along the lines of “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s intolerance!” Perhaps this situation is similar, and I am blinded to my own bias against people who are biased.
However, as someone who also follows the one whose birth was announced by the angels singing, “Peace on earth, good will to all,” I take personal offense at his planned action. When the course is unclear, the one thing I try to hold on to is love. Jesus didn’t speak about the Koran, or mosques, or many of the other hot topics that grab our national attention. He did say, however, that the two most important things in the whole world were loving God and loving neighbor. Until I get those right, I’m not going to waste my time burning anything- besides logs.
