The Language of Hate

Let me ask you a question: How do you feel when you see a skinhead burning an American flag on the evening news? What about all those times we’ve seen citizens of other countries burning the American flag, chanting ‘Death to America’? When I see images like that, I think that they hate us, they hate America. Whenever I see someone burning a flag, a book, or another object, it’s always been in hate. So when I read about Dove World Outreach Center Pastor Terry Jones’ plans to hold a Quran-burning on September 11, 2010, I cringed. Aren’t Pastor Jones and his church sending a message of hate?

According to Pastor Jones and his church, he believes the Islamic faith is ‘of the Devil’ and incites violence among radical Muslims, so they are taking a stand against these radical Muslims by burning the Quran. Now let me be honest and very blunt: I don’t believe that we as Christians should be tolerant of other religions, nor should we not call them what they are, which is false. However, there is a line that none of us should cross. Muslims believe the Quran is their Word of God and therefore is something they cherish, just like I cherish my Bible. The Quran is part of them, as the Bible has become part of me. Therefore, even though I believe the Quran to be false, I disagree with this public burning of the book. This book is part of who they are, and by burning these books publicly we are telling them that we hate them. How would I feel if I saw people burning the Bible? It would hurt me personally. This becomes not just about religion. This becomes about the person. And regardless of what any radical Muslim has ever done, if you are a Christian and told by Jesus to ‘love your neighbors as yourselves,’ then you have no business burning those books in a public manner. Pastor Jones states that this is in protest to radical Islam, but because the Quran is the holy book for all of Islam, he and his congregation are essentially saying they hate all of them.

There are other factors now at work: General Petraeus has noted that Jones’ protest puts American troops in Afghanistan in danger, and he’s right. The Muslims who are violent enough to take action against Americans are already angered by the threat of Jones' protest. They are already burning images of Jones and the American flag and we can all be sure it’s not just in protest of what Jones is about to do, but because they hate him and the country he’s from. Christians are held to a higher standard than this. We are not called to hate people. The Bible tells us to hate what is evil and to cling to what is good, but it does not tell us to hate people. It tells us to love people. We are all God’s creation, and if Christians were to remember that, then maybe, just maybe, we’d be seen for what God meant for us to be: images of Christ.

For further information about the Dove World Outreach Center’s plan to burn the Quran, as well as reaction to it, see below:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/7189605.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/09/07/2010-09-07_terry_jones_pastor_of_dove_world_outreach_center_will_go_through_with_koranburni.html?r=news
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/07/petraeus-burn-a-koran-day-could-endanger-us-troops.html