The Rev. Terry Jones is pastor of the Dove Outreach Center, a Gainesville, Florida church. From reports, we get the impression that its members would barely fit into a standard broom closet.
Jones’s wife is co-pastor and writes a lot of the church’s literature, which, we’re also told, is riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors. If ever a church deserved anonymity, it’s this one. Yet the Jones church made headlines all over the world by announcing that it would publicly burn copies of the Koran, though later it gave the Muslim scripture a reprieve.
The media — in its insufferable insolence — has chosen to shine its spotlight on this small Christian congregation and give its provocative behavior an importance it clearly doesn’t merit.
As soon as the story hit the wires, the Establishment weighed in.
First it was General David Petraeus, who warned that burning the Koran could lead to retaliatory attacks on our troops. You can be certain that Petraeus did not make this statement without the permission and even prompting of the Obama administration. The last general who spoke out of turn is currently grazing somewhere in a field of alfalfa.
Then — after Petraeus had laid the groundwork, the rest of the gang began to issue press releases.
Attorney General Eric Holder called the planned book-burning “idiotic and dangerous.”
Hillary Clinton called it a “disrespectful, disgraceful act.”
And even the President of the United States, Obama himself, said on national TV: “I hope [Jones] listens to those better angels and understands that this is a destructive act that he’s engaging in.”
At that point, the cork was out of the bottle and the evil genie was prancing around newsrooms all over the world, daring reporters and newsmakers not to comment on the story.
Thus the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue called it “an outrageous and grave gesture.”
And Sarah Palin deemed it an “insensitive and an unnecessary provocation.” She added, “Book burning is antithetical to American ideals.”
All this attention was lavished on a church the size of a thimble that speaks for no one but its own insignificant self. If St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York or the National Cathedral in Washington were to hold a book-burning ceremony, such a gesture — however stupid — would justifiably command the attention of the media. Both are flagship churches of major denominations. But the Dove Outreach Center is its own Vatican and the Rev. Terry Jones its infallible Pope.
If you’re tempted to think he’s terminally stupid, don’t be too sure. He wanted to occupy stage center with what he billed as his “International Burn a Koran Day” and — by golly — there he was, glowering at us from the pages of hundreds of newspapers worldwide.
So what did Obama and the militant Left get out of this international focus on the Dove Outreach Center?
Like the Rev. Fred Phelps — with his “God Hates Fags” signs — the Rev. Terry Jones has become in a few short days a poster boy for the Left in general and the Obama Administration in particular — the embodiment of the hatred they imagine (hope) lies at the heart of Christian opposition to sexual promiscuity, gay marriage, and a preference for the Gospel of Jesus Christ over the sword of the Prophet.
Despite the fact that the Rev. Terry Jones has provided the enemies of orthodox Christianity with the perfect whipping boy, we must admit that in his muddle-headed theology, he is reacting to the same indignities that gnaw at the nation’s gut: the insistence by George W. Bush and Barack Obama alike that Islam is a “religion of peace” and that we must not even suggest that Jihad as viewed by Osama bin Laden has anything to do with mainstream Muslim theology; that Muslims have been killing Christians for a long time now in Sudan, Indonesia and elsewhere; that if they have enough money, Muslims can build a mosque anywhere they wish and must not be criticized, while churches, crosses, and other Christian symbols are being challenged all over the country; and that we should not criticize Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia for banning Christian worship, the wearing of crosses, and the public carrying of Bibles.
In effect, the media and the Establishment are asking us to treat ignorant, emotional Muslims with tolerance and understanding. In Denmark, when twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet were published, riots occurred all over Europe, eventually resulting in a hundred or more reported deaths. After Theo Van Gogh made a ten-minute film about the oppression of women in Islam, Mohammed Bouyen, a Muslim, murdered him, shooting him eight times on a Dutch street, then attempted to decapitate him with a knife. And there’s the World Trade Center with its 3,000+ deaths. Those are the actions of simple-minded Muslims.
The Rev. Terry Jones is a simple-minded Christian — the counterpart of the Muslim nut-cases cited above. And what did Jones propose to do? Burn a few copies of the Koran. Do the media and the Establishment ask us to treat his ignorance with tolerance and understanding? Not at all. They pile on. And that’s precisely why he planned to burn Korans — because he thinks Hillary and Holder and Obama are on the side of Islam — and somebody needs to do something! By the way, in his ignorance, he doesn’t see any evidence that Islam is a religion of peace.
Maybe Bush and Obama expect too much when they ask simple-minded Christians to ignore the behavior of Jihadists. Small wonder that someone like the Rev. Terry Jones would want to respond to these acts, albeit with the worst kind of boorishness. Of course, his behavior requires condemnation because it endangers our troops, Christian missionaries, and reflects poorly on Christianity. By the same token, maybe we should be somewhat less tolerant of those who commit murder in the name of the Prophet.
Jordan McClintock is the pen name of a conservative scholar who has written extensively about American politics, literature and social policy.