What are we Kindling?
September 7th, 2010A Consuming Fire
There is an interesting story in the news. A Florida preacher, Terry Jones, wants to burn some Korans. And General Petraeus is trying to convince him not to do it, because it will get our troops in trouble with Muslims.
This is a confusing issue, and I’ve been thinking about it.
Premises:
1. The Koran is evil. It’s more than an idolatrous book; it’s an idol. Muslims believe it is God himself, in book form. God hates the Koran.
2. In Christianity, the physical destruction of idols is righteous. The Old Testament makes that clear. One of the repeated offenses the kings of Israel and Judah committed was a sin of omission. They refrained from destroying idols and sites of idol worship (“high places”). It is obvious that God hates idols and tools of idol worship, and that he wants them destroyed.
3. Our troops are dying to protect our First Amendment rights, including freedom of religion and freedom of expression. This includes the burning of Korans, or, for that matter, Bibles.
4. The kind of people who will react violently to the burning of Korans already hate us as much as they possibly can, and they are already doing just about everything they can to harm us.
5. Offending non-Christians is wrong, unless you have a good reason.
It’s hard to deny these premises. So what are the conclusions? Here is what I have so far.
1. General Petraeus is completely out of line, if he is actively trying to discourage the Koran-burning. He has no business telling any American what to say or believe. It doesn’t matter whether he’s right. What matters is that he is fighting the fundamental impetus behind the First Amendment. The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to prevent government agents (including the military) from infringing on our rights. As a private citizen, he can say anything he likes, but he is not speaking as a private citizen.
2. Burning the Korans publicly is excessively provocative. Disposing of Korans is a good thing, but doing it for media consumption goes beyond what is necessary. If you find a box of Korans in your attic, by all means, destroy them. And don’t lie about it or try to cover it up. But don’t make a Youtube video of yourself burning the Korans. Don’t publicize what you have done. Jones could make his point simply by stating publicly that the Koran is evil and that destroying copies of it is a good thing. It’s true that he would not be as effective, since he would not get as much attention, but what he is doing seems to rise to the level of taunting, and that is not a Christian practice.
3. Burning the Korans will not make things any worse than they are now, from the standpoint of violence. Our enemies are already doing everything they can to hurt us. But it is likely to make it harder for evangelists to reach Muslims, so it’s probably a bad thing. It would be wrong to consider our troops, since their function is to protect our right to express ourselves freely, and they have volunteered to take the risks. Refraining from expression in order to appease violent enemies who want to restrict our rights is insane, and it gives them victory without requiring them to defeat us militarily. But as a Christian, you should not needlessly offend people you need to reach for God. The prospect of violence is the wrong reason for choosing not to burn a Koran. We are warriors first and foremost, and we should never run from an important battle, and we should not give up essential rights in order to protect our troops. But the ultimate purpose of our fight is to grow the kingdom of God, and burning Korans will probably be counterproductive.
4. Petraeus or Hillary Clinton should come out with a statement, reminding Muslims that Terry Jones is not a representative of the American people or our government. The distinction will be lost on many Muslims, just as they ignore the distinction between military people and innocent civilians (including Muslims) working in skyscrapers, but it still needs to be noted publicly, by an agent of the government.
If anything happens to Terry Jones, it will only serve to prove Islamist extremists are savages, and that we are right to hunt them down and kill them. I admire his courage. But if I were in his shoes, I would not burn the Korans in public. I would dump any Korans I found in the trash, but I would not go out looking for Korans (or worse, buy them, providing financial support to the publishers) just so I could destroy them in front of cameras.
I think this makes sense. I wonder how the world got so crazy.
September 7th, 2010 at 3:11 PM
Your premises and conclusions are right on the money! The world is crazy! And the simple reason is sin. If sin is most simply defined as being outside God’s perfect will for our lives, then all involved in this silly fiasco are likely sinning in some way. The sin of the Muslims would seem obvious, but the sin of leaders like Terry Jones (if he is indeed acting outside the direction of God) is much more insidious. We Christians need to be much more involved in rooting out this type of sin than that of the non-believers, something we’ve done a poor job of so far.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:08 PM
Re precedent for taunting idolators, see the incident with the priests of Baal.
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Of course, Elijah was a certified prophet.
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I Kings 18, verses 19-40. http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt09a18.htm
September 7th, 2010 at 4:16 PM
I figured you would come and mention that story, and you exceeded my expectations by pointing out a good counterargument: Elijah was acting on a revelation from God, whereas Terry Jones is probably just angry.
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I see another difference. Baal had pretty well won in Elijah’s time. Ahab and Jezebel had 950 “prophets” on their payroll, supporting Baal and (I think) Ashtoreth. We are not quite that far gone yet. And Elijah was dealing with people who knew the true god and chose Baal instead. Muslims probably deserve more patience, since they have no idea who God really is or what he is like.
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Maybe I’m wrong. I do know that Christian evangelists do pretty well among Muslims, and that they don’t do it by burning Korans.
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I just read the Elijah story yesterday. Trying to finish the Bible by April.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:18 PM
Side note: Perry Stone believes the ten plagues of Egypt were specifically designed to humiliate known Egyptian deities, by demonstrating total control over things the deities supposedly ruled. For example, darkness was a pimpslap for the “god” of the sun, Ra.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:43 PM
Bible believers are pretty tepid when it comes to fulfilling the positive commandment to eradicate Amalek, for whom most commentators for the last 30 centuries ascribe violent antisemitic behavior as a phenotype. Most people don’t want to think about it, let alone consider actual participation in the eradication of evil.
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If there’s nothing for which a “believer” would kill for, it is impossible to fulfill much of scripture which mandates killing. (I’ll repeat something I’ve said often: the KJV butchers Hebrew by translating the 6th commandment as “Thou shalt not kill,” when the Hebrew word is NOT “kill” but “murder”.)
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King Saul’s sovereignty was forfeit when he failed to kill Agag. What sovereignty can we expect if we repeat that. History proves that we repeat Divine lessons until we do what we’re supposed to do. Proverbs 8 notes that those who love death hate God.
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Are we comfortable with the idea of meeting our Maker and trying to rationalize why we tried to appease, get along, pacify, accommodate, etc. members of a child-sacrificing death cult whose clergy openly brag about “loving death” with no fatwas issued by the so-called more “moderate” clergy members?
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Until the imams and mullahs are on TV and state clearly “No virgins for you!” to the shahid-wannabes and their parents and their clergy, all their apologetics should be seen as the taqiyya-rich BS it is.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:47 PM
I saw an interesting thing in the OT recently. God told the Hebrews he would not clear out all of their enemies, because he wanted them to know how to fight. It almost seems inconsistent with the obligation for the Hebrews to wipe out the Amalekites, but I suppose there is a difference between the people’s failure and God’s refusal to do their job for them.
September 7th, 2010 at 5:17 PM
I don’t see the point of confusion. A divine command to wiping out the Amalekites isn’t synonymous with God’s wiping out all enemies.
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There’d always be opportunistic enemies, but none having the ur-hatred of Amalek. It’s why ONLY Amalek was singled out for annihilation.
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The need to know how to fight against opportunists would and does still remain.
September 7th, 2010 at 9:46 PM
I find I have to disagree with your notion that “[i]t would be wrong to consider our troops […]”. They are fighting a war at our behest and it would ill behoove us to throw unnecessary obstacles in their path. Such consideration should not be the deciding factor, but should be made.
No matter the distinctions Petraeus or Hillary or the president or anyone else make, it is an exercise in futility. The putative audience is not incapable of making the distinction but rather finds it advantageous not to make it.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:21 PM
The primary purpose of our troops is to make sure that our rights are not infringed. If we have to think of their safety every time we criticize Islam, our rights are infringed, and our troops have failed at their most fundamental mission. This is what they signed up for; when you volunteer for military service, you choose to risk death and injury so the folks at home can enjoy freedom, including the freedom to act stupidly and frivolously.
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Most conservatives support the public criticism of Islamists. Most of us supported the Danish cartoonists, for example. The right to draw a cartoon may seem frivolous, but it’s an example of the most basic human liberty, and it’s the kind of thing our soldiers have died for, ever since America was founded. Soldiers don’t just die so we can do important or dignified things. They die for things like rap, Bill Maher’s show, Michael Moore movies, Silly String, Yoko Ono’s unbelievably atrocious singing, Pop Rocks, and novelty condoms. They die for all of our protected activities.
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I think it’s wrong for a preacher to video himself burning Korans, but in America, I don’t have the right to prevent him, and I don’t have the right to say his foolish expression is not sufficiently important to be protected by military force.
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And again, it is impossible to make our enemies significantly more hostile than they already are. I am fairly sure we are annoying them already by invading their countries and slaughtering tens of thousands of their soldiers, guerillas, and terrorists. Crazy though they are, that probably bothers them more than a nut burning Korans.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:23 PM
“I don’t see the point of confusion.”
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I don’t see it, either, but the reason I don’t see it is not the same as the reason you don’t see it.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:39 PM
“Soldiers […] die for things like rap, Bill Maher’s show, Michael Moore movies, Silly String, Yoko Ono’s unbelievably atrocious singing, Pop Rocks, and novelty condoms.”
Yes, I know. That’s why I think they deserve some consideration. Because it’s a dead certain bet they’re not going to get any from the barely house-trained producers, consumers, and aficionados of that dreck.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:49 PM
The point wasn’t that Americans do not appreciate soldiers. The point was that we send soldiers to die so we can avoid worrying in advance about our speech. That may sound wrong, but it’s very right.
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Our ability to express ourselves thoughtlessly is a glorious tribute to the people who have died to protect that ability, even if our thoughtlessness endangers them. It is proof of their success, and that they did not die in vain. We are spending the capital our military’s blood buys for us, and as far as I know, it is their wish that we do so. If not, it would make much more sense to shut up and do what the mullahs tell us.
September 7th, 2010 at 11:43 PM
“If we have to think of their safety every time we criticize Islam, our rights are infringed”
If the first priority of a military is the safety of it’s members, then it has no reason to exist.
GBTT
September 7th, 2010 at 11:56 PM
Do you think our troops are fighting to protect this sort of thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8jj4px1wSA
September 8th, 2010 at 1:28 AM
“I wonder how the world got so crazy.”
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By repeatedly refusing to listen to history’s “miner’s canaries” and failing to come up with Churchillian rhetoric aimed at a Western (Christian) audience sufficient to properly annihilate cultures who engage in asymmetric warfare.
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We didn’t need to annihilate the Germans or Japanese to win WWII. We had to annihilate the ideas of Third Reich and Japanese Empire. We haven’t BEGUN to publicly address the normative dogma of 1.2 billion people who wish to replace freedom with a caliphate under dhimmi-hostile sharia law. The only difference between the moderates and so-called Islamists is merely opportunity. The moderates AGREE with imposing sharia, but they’re not willing to state their opinion publicly, nor are they ready, yet, to engage in violence to achieve that end… though it seems that with enough investigation most moderates are quite willing to send money to the radicals.
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For those “modern” types reading this who think we don’t have a moral or legal right to inflict collateral damage, the Geneva Conventions are clear — though this point is completely ignored — that civilians who willingly hide non-uniformed combatants (in hospitals, ambulances, schools, baby formula factories, etc.) are NOT entitled to be treated as innocents. When “civilians” hide terrorists, it is THEY and not US who are entirely responsible for collateral damage.
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Allowing an avowed enemy unlimited attempts at “first strikes” will eventually result in a fatal first blow, to which we cannot respond. The so-called “moral high ground” of never engaging in a pre-emptive strike when the enemy is clear about their desire and their increasing ability to murder us is morally bankrupt. Our idiotic policy will result in the deaths of OUR innocents.
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Look up “hudna”. There is NO word for armstice or peaceful co-existence in Islam. There are only temporary truces that last until their side feels it has the upper hand to re-engage and conquer all of us living in Dar al Harb until we are living under Dar al Islam. There is no Dar al Leavemetheflipalone.
September 8th, 2010 at 8:29 AM
Thank you for a wonderfully written article that goes a long way to explain the mixed emotions I have about this.
September 8th, 2010 at 9:52 AM
Aaron, today I finished 1 Kings. I read the passage where the prophet asked a man to strike him, and the man refused, and God sent a lion to kill the man. As you know, this was part of God’s plan to convict Ahab of making an ungodly treaty with Ben-Hadad. It’s funny that so many Christians think peace is always the answer.
September 8th, 2010 at 6:09 PM
Many gag over the half of “a time for war, a time for peace” as much as most members of congress gag on the 2nd and 10th Amendments.
September 8th, 2010 at 11:26 PM
Steve, your post said “Muslims believe it (the Koran) is God himself.”
I thought it was a great post, but I can find no source that backs up that statement.
I’d like to use your post for discussion this coming Sabbath in my Sabbath School Class, and if you have a source for the statement, it would be much appreciated.
September 9th, 2010 at 2:46 PM
The guy has a right to do what he proposes. I don’t have great issues with the basic concept (other than the publicity stunt aspects of it).
On the other hand, the guy seems to be a great twit and pushing this solely for its publicity stunt value.
September 10th, 2010 at 6:16 AM
I find it interesting that those who defend the most vehemently that burning an American flag is a protected form a free expression are the quickest to call “desecrating” a Koran a hate crime.
The response by the Islamic world to this strikes me an awful lot like that of an abusive husband, or perhaps a blackmailer looking for “protection money.” Just keep quiet, do what we want, and nobody gets hurt. Get uppity or out of line, and I can’t be responsible for the consequences.”
“WHY do you MAKE me DO this?!”
The cries for religious tolerance when it comes to respecting muslims’ right to build the GZ mosque seem suddenly silent when it comes to someone’s right to torch a book if they feel like it. Not that I’m defending what this dude is doing, but I find the hypocrisy interesting, if not all that surprising.
September 10th, 2010 at 10:04 AM
It was a mistake for Petraeus et al to give Jones, who is a kook, publicity. Jones wants publicity, that is the main point of what he is doing, and now our govt has elevated him when they should have ignored him. Of course the media will spend days (or until the next mass-shooting or white-child kidnapping) wringing its hands over these events, without acknowledging its own intimate role in encouraging them.