On September 11, the folks at Dove World Church in Gainesville, Florida (perhaps best known for their “No Homo Mayor” signs a few months back) will be hosting “International Burn A Quran Day.”
And this move it apparently so extreme that even some Religious Right leaders are denouncing it:
“Dove World Outreach Center, shame on you,” responded Angel Nuñez, vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.
“If I want to win a Muslim to Christ, I surely won’t do it by burning the Qur’an in public and provoking them to hate us more,” said Nuñez. “The greatest weapon a Christian has is godly love.”
The National Association for Evangelicals released a statement Thursday urging the church, which averages 50 attendees each Sunday, to call off the event.
“It sounds like the proposed Qu’ran burning is rooted in revenge,” said NAE president Leith Anderson. “The most powerful statement by the organizers of the planned September 11th bonfire would be to call it off in the name and love of Jesus Christ.”
“I think it is appalling, disgusting, and brainless,” said Richard Land, director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “I think that those of us who find what they are doing abhorrent should say so, and say so publicly and often.”
Land added that the church’s actions “besmirch the reputation of our Savior, and that makes it blasphemy.”
Of course, it should also be noted that while Land thinks burning the Koran is blasphemous, he’s not exactly defender of Muslims or their rights, as he’s also vehemently opposed to the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque”:
As a Baptist who believes in religious freedom and separation of church and state, I strongly support religious communities’ right to have places of worship within reasonable distance of where they live. However, no religious community has an absolute right to have a place of worship wherever they choose, regardless of the community’s objections.
I believe that putting a mosque at Ground Zero, or very close to Ground Zero, is unacceptable … Having a mosque at Ground Zero would be the equivalent of having a Japanese Shinto shrine built next to the USS Arizona.
