Koran Burning
September 7, 2010
I saw on the news this morning that one Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Center, is to hold a `burn a Koran' day in order to demonstrate his hatred of Islam.
A couple of things come to mind. First, there is the obvious question of whether such a gesture will cause some extreme backlash in areas of the world where American troops are deployed. What might seem like a jolly good idea to Mr Jones may cost the lives or limbs of young people serving their country overseas. If, as many have argued, the problem with the building of the New York Islamic Center is not that the Muslims have no constitutional right to do it (the First Amendment would seem to indicate they do) but that it is irresponsible, then the same argument would seem to apply to this act of book burning. Legal but stupid.
Second, has book burning ever done anything other than make the object of the fire more interesting and sought after, and make the perpetrators look like mindless reactionary vandals? The Reformation is a great example of this: the Catholics burned Luther's books and, hey presto!, they became bestsellers, and the Reformers had, at least for a while, the public sympathy that comes with being victims. That's censorship for you. The same kind of thing happened in the sixties with the Rolling Stones: ban them form the airwaves and suddenly they are top of the charts. Book burning is entirely counterproductive, not simply for the reason outlined under my first point, but also because it only ever achieves the opposite of that which it intends. Luther understood this -- when Prierias published his criticisms of Luther in 1518, Luther did not burn the book; he republished it with a new, witty preface and a refutation. He understood the subtleties of polemic in a way that left his opponents playing catch-up.
This Koran burning is childish; it will at best only draw attention to the book and fuel curiosity; at worst, it could jeopardise young people serving their country. Christians would be better served spending the time praying for the conversion of their Muslim neighbours and reaching out to them with love and with God's true word, rather than with a box of matches and acts of counterproductive immaturity.
A couple of things come to mind. First, there is the obvious question of whether such a gesture will cause some extreme backlash in areas of the world where American troops are deployed. What might seem like a jolly good idea to Mr Jones may cost the lives or limbs of young people serving their country overseas. If, as many have argued, the problem with the building of the New York Islamic Center is not that the Muslims have no constitutional right to do it (the First Amendment would seem to indicate they do) but that it is irresponsible, then the same argument would seem to apply to this act of book burning. Legal but stupid.
Second, has book burning ever done anything other than make the object of the fire more interesting and sought after, and make the perpetrators look like mindless reactionary vandals? The Reformation is a great example of this: the Catholics burned Luther's books and, hey presto!, they became bestsellers, and the Reformers had, at least for a while, the public sympathy that comes with being victims. That's censorship for you. The same kind of thing happened in the sixties with the Rolling Stones: ban them form the airwaves and suddenly they are top of the charts. Book burning is entirely counterproductive, not simply for the reason outlined under my first point, but also because it only ever achieves the opposite of that which it intends. Luther understood this -- when Prierias published his criticisms of Luther in 1518, Luther did not burn the book; he republished it with a new, witty preface and a refutation. He understood the subtleties of polemic in a way that left his opponents playing catch-up.
This Koran burning is childish; it will at best only draw attention to the book and fuel curiosity; at worst, it could jeopardise young people serving their country. Christians would be better served spending the time praying for the conversion of their Muslim neighbours and reaching out to them with love and with God's true word, rather than with a box of matches and acts of counterproductive immaturity.
