Burning Quran is to American Values, as Protesting Building a Mosque is to ___?

“As you sow, so shall you reap.” One of those often quoted sage insights into life that we rarely attend to because it is clearly too simple to be actually valid. Of course the same sages who would offer that advise would also council you that “to fail to learn the lessons of history will doom you to repeat them.” It makes you wonder what one can and should learn from our cultural legacies whether religious, political or societal.

Consider the Florida minister that plans to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack. What lessons has he learned from his religious background? Does his proposed action of burning another religion’s authoritative text spring forth from any particular biblical text or Christian principle? Surely burning a religious text is what we would expect from the teaching to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, or to “judge not, least you be judge”. But I am having difficulty reconciling his logic in connecting the “What would Jesus do?” test to assessing the righteousness of his position. And you have to wonder, even if the minister forgot to ask himself this question, did every member of his congregation also fail to see a lapse in the Christian values judgment that his decision suggests? Not clear that the minister has learned from his Christian faith much about how to treat others with humanity, charity or kindness.

But perhaps the minister is reacting from the teachings of his political milieu, from an American values tradition. Burning the Qurans would be protected by our American value in defending our freedom of speech or expression; however, while this value grants us the right to do such things the burning of books is certainly not viewed as an action that in any sense defends this right. And burning a religious text because you don’t approve of the religion yourself is not an action that supports or defends our right to religious freedom and tolerance. I suppose that here again members of his congregation can clearly explain how this event will bring honor or pride to their group even while they will have failed to live up to those American values that are so connected to preserving the freedoms our nation was founded to insure.

This leaves the minister with acting according to current social mores where hate and fear are common motivations for engaging in any number of behaviors. Now here we have a justification for his approach. In his narrow and primitive view that anyone who does not belong to his clan is a threat he is lead to take some offensive action that will cause them to be driven off. This reaction of hate and fear for anyone outside their own group is not uncommon in our country today. It resonates with the our political parties’ inability to work together, to find common cause, to compromise to achieve something of value for the public good, or to place country before party.

If the minister is wrong to burn the Quran based on any Christian, American or humanitarian value even though he lives in a society that recognizes his right to do so and will defend that right; then what do we conclude from efforts to stop a mosque being built ‘too near’ to the 9/11 Ground Zero site? Which American value is not betrayed in the case of the mosque that we see as being besmirched by burning Qurans?