09.08.10
Burning Quran?
RG mail
DURHAM — A small church in Gainesville, Fla., (ironically called
Dove World Outreach Center) has announced plans to burn copies of the
Quran on Sept. 11, in vengeful commemoration of the terrorist attacks on
New York and Washington nine years ago. This news item happened to
reach me while I was attending a conference in Berlin, Germany – and for
that reason it struck me with special force.
Earlier that same
day, I had stood in a public square known as the Bebelplatz, just across
the street from Berlin’s Humboldt University. In the middle of the
Bebelplatz there is a translucent panel embedded in the pavement.
Looking down through the glass, you see below ground many rows of white
bookshelves, all completely empty.
This simple but moving memorial
is designed to recall the events of May 10, 1933, when Nazi propaganda
minister Joseph Goebbels instigated a book-burning to destroy books by
Jewish authors, along with other ideologically “incorrect” works. With
the eager participation of the SS and the Hitler Youth, more than 20,000
books were burned in the Bebelplatz on that infamous day, in the shadow
of Germany’s pre-eminent university.
Nearby stands a plaque containing the words of the German poet
Heinrich Heine: “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende
auch Menschen” (“There, where they burn books, they will in the end burn
people.”) Heine wrote those words in 1820. One hundred and thirteen
years later, his prophecy began coming true, and Heine’s own works were
among those burned by the Nazis.
Having just witnessed Berlin’s rueful monument of public contrition, I was dismayed
to hear the report of the planned book-burning in Florida – not least
because I fear this planned event is a sign and symptom of the angry
temper of our times.
Many Christian leaders in the United States
promptly disavowed and deplored the spiteful plans of the tiny Florida
church. Richard Land, director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s
Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called the plan “appalling,
disgusting and brainless.”
News reports gave several reasons for
such disapproval: Burning Muslim books is contrary to America’s own
ideals of freedom of speech and religion; such actions will exacerbate
tensions between Christians and Muslims around the world; if Christians
burn the Quran, we may soon see Muslims burning Bibles. (The last point
seems to be a pragmatist permutation of the Golden Rule: Don’t do
something bad to somebody else, because if you do, they may retaliate.)
But in fact followers of Jesus have deeper reasons not to burn the books of their enemies, reasons integral to their own faith.
The apostle Paul, struggling against opponents of his gospel in the city of Corinth,
insisted that “the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the
world.” Rather than resorting to violence, he sought to “demolish
arguments” and “captivate every thought” through open statement of the
truth.
For him, to use coercive or deceptive means would be to
succumb to the forces he was opposing. His message could be defended
only by clear, peaceful proclamation of the word. As Angel Nuñez of the
National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference observed, “The
greatest weapon a Christian has is godly love.”
Similarly, the
Gospel of Luke tells a story about Jesus’ response to a Samaritan
village that rejected him and his followers. His disciples James and
John asked, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from
heaven and consume them?” But Jesus rebuked them and said (according to
some ancient manuscripts of Luke’s Gospel), “No, you don’t know what
spirit you belong to” (Luke 9:51-56).
I fear that my Christian
brothers and sisters in the Dove World Outreach Center, like James and
John, do not know what spirit they belong to. If they burn the Quran,
they will be acting in the spirit of Goebbels. History has taught us
where that leads. But if they listen to Jesus, they will learn that his
way is not to call down fire against enemies. Instead, his way is to
commend the gospel through open statement of the truth – to act in a
spirit of patience and generosity, to return good for evil, to pray for
those who hurt us. That is the spirit of Jesus.
I pray that the
citizens of Gainesville will not someday in the future need to build a
memorial like the one in Berlin’s Bebelplatz.
Richard B. Hays is the dean of Duke Divinity School.
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/08/13/626362/wwjd-not-burn-the-quran.html#ixzz0yudbzyPv