A Ramble About Burning the Qur'an

If you're a news junkie like me (yes, I have high speed news again!), and maybe if you're not, you've probably heard about the decision by a pastor down south to hold an "International Burn the Koran Day." From what I understand, in spite of repeated statements and requests by the US government, including General Petraeus who happens to be responsible for the lives of the men and women serving overseas in Afghanistan; in spite of these high level requests this church still intends to go ahead with this.

At first glance, I must admit that I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, no, I don't agree with Islam, and I don't agree with the Koran on most points, although I was surprised at how much we do agree on and what we agree on having read through part of it. That one of the feelings that comes into my mind.

But it's the other which comes into my mind more strongly. This is the feeling of, "How can you possibly call this a Christian act when it is direct contradiction to what Jesus taught?" And, by extension, "how can you call yourself a Christian?"

Jesus taught us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who persecute us, and to pray for those who abuse us. How is burning the most sacred book in the Islamic world loving them? How is performing an act of vengeance and petty spite doing good to them? In short, how does this action pass the acid test of what Jesus actually taught and lived when, as He was being nailed to a cross, prayed for the forgiveness of his tormentors? How does this give and display Jesus to the Muslim world?

Another teaching of Jesus comes into my mind, and that is "how can you see clearly enough to remove a splinter from another's eye when you have a log in your own?" And also, "don't judge so that you won't be judged; don't condemn, so that you won't be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven."

Burning the Koran is, in some ways, an illustration of pointing out the faults and errors of everyone else around you, while being completely blind to your own. The basic practice of the Christian faith is to look deeply at your own errors and admit them. To recognize that there is something wrong with you. The primary focus must be on one's own spiritual problem, not everyone else's. Burning someone else's Koran doesn't do anything to advance one's own spiritual growth and it only drives them further away from Truth, not closer to it. You have to let them do the burning when they're ready and prompted by Grace and the Holy Spirit, otherwise they will only draw farther away.

There was a scene in the recent remake of "The Karate Kid" where Mr. Han takes his student out of the professional Kung-Fu teacher's dojo and then declares adamantly that "That is not Kung-Fu! That is a bad man teaching very bad things!"

This Pastor who plans this... "That is not Christianity! That is a misguided and ignorant man teaching very bad things!" I hope the Muslim world understands that.