So, some mad pastor who leads a church of 50 people in Florida (rather fatuously called the ‘Dove world outreach centre‘) has raised a political storm over his ‘International burn a Koran day‘.

Apparently God told him to do it.

Check him out (Is that President Bush behind him in the picture being supported by the heavenly angels?)

Their website seems to be down, but there is a whole lot more nonsense on this Facebook page.

What is significant is not that some people are bonkers enough to think that this is a good thing to do- even a Christian thing to do- but rather that we live in times that such an act might be so inflammatory as to require statements by the President of America, our Prime minister, the Pope and many others.

There will always be idiots like Terry Jones. People who believe that their perspective comes straight from God. They are dangerous only in as much as they can be seen as an extreme version of a much wider world view that is prevalent across conservative Christianity.

I fear that this is true. Anyone who has spent time in conservative evangelical circles will be used to descriptions of anything that is not overtly Christian as being ‘of the devil’, or even ‘Evil’. Islam is described as ‘a deception of the devil’. Islamic terrorism is then a viewed as a natural consequence of an evil religion preaching hatred and violence. Any suggestion that this violence has to been seen in a context of global conflict, injustice and poverty is regarded as tantamount to getting in bed with the devil.

I simply do not concur. Anyone who has read the Sufi poets, or has any understanding of the effects of Imperialism and globalisation over the last 50 years can not simplify this issue to a dualistic good/evil issue.

The consequences of all this are likely to be more of this-

And more radicalisation, polarisation and intolerance.

In the name of God.

One thing that has become increasingly apparent to me is how we people of faith easily use our written texts like Asherah poles– we raise them high, as idolatrous objects of our worship. This was more or less the reason for this earlier post.

A few years ago, a friend of mine proposed an installation where we would burn a Bible. He wrote a poem that summed up the reasons for doing it- here. We never did it, as it was simply too controversial for our context, but I still think that the idea is interesting and provocative.

Because we do not worship the words in the book, we worship the Word, another name for Jesus, who had little tolerance for religious bigots.