There is plenty of outrage to go around these days as we near the ninth anniversary of 9-11. What unites White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and General David Petraeus is outrage over the Terry Jones plan to burn a Koran (Quran) on Saturday, September 11th, years after Muslim terrorists attacked us with hijacked planes by ramming them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11. Heroes on another passenger plane minimized the slaughter when their plane crashed over a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
I do not know Pastor Jones, but I suspect he and the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida will not carry out the planned bonfire. However, It will have illustrated one difference between Christianity and Islam. Although offense of Muslims has been the reason the burning of Korans has been opposed, many of these politicians didn’t hesitate to support the building of the Cordoba Initiative Mosque near the site of the “Ground Zero” attacks on 9/11. That will offend many Americans. There is one other difference. You don’t see Christians ready to launch violence in response to the building of the Mosque. You didn’t even see Americans protest against Islam in 2001 after the terrorist attacks killed more than two thousand of our citizens.
I have to admit I almost pulled a similar stunt when I was active in the anti-abortion movement in the early 1990s. Rush Limbaugh had instituted his caller abortions, itself a publicity stunt where he used the sucking sound of a vacuum cleaner on his radio program, pretending to abort callers to his show. Of course, the pro-child-killing left was outraged and a few on the right as well. My plan was to call for collie abortions on a particular date and time just outside Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa. I don’t know if there was a law against me doing abortions on dogs but it would not have mattered a bit. Just the plan itself would have probably gotten me arrested. (By the way, I never would have done it; I love dogs more than some people love their unborn children.) But can you imagine the howling if I had said I was going to do it and gave the time and place? Many would have been more outraged at the killing of a little unborn puppy than they were over the 70 human beings slaughtered each week inside walls a few feet away. This would have even angered many who call themselves pro-life. (I’m pretty sure this story is raising the blood pressure of not a few readers even now).
I don’t regret having forgone the collie abortions and I do think that Dove Outreach should, instead of burning Korans, plan a missions trip to Dearborn, Michigan or other area in the US with a concentrated population of Muslims. The preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ is able to save Muslims, abortionists and even a few pro-lifers like me.
