Betty Winston Bayé: Obscure No Longer, Quran-Burn Pastor opens Door To The Asylum.
Obscure no longer, Quran-burn pastor opens door to the asylum
By Betty Winston Bayé
A lot of people are freaked out by numbers. The numbers 666, for example, are regarded by many as the “mark of the beast” as signified in the Book of Revelations. There are hotels and apartment buildings in which the next stop after the 12th floor is the 14th because the number 13 has come to be associated with witchcraft, death and general bad luck. The number 7, on the other hand, is considered a “lucky” number, and rumor has it that some parents “schedule” childbirth so that their babies won't arrive on a wrong-numbered day.
But for all this, I don't recall number 9 being assigned any special significance, good or bad, and so it is puzzling as to why the ninth anniversary of the dastardly 9/11 terrorist attacks on America that claimed almost 3,000 lives has unleashed a wave of anti-Islam, anti-Muslim sentiment (“hysteria,” actually) in the country that the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth anniversaries did not.
Anyhow, this Saturday, the ninth anniversary of 9/11, is the day that “Pastor” Terry Jones has set as the occasion that he will host his “International Burn a Quran Day” at his church, The Dove World Outreach Center, in Gainesville, Fla. Though his church reportedly has 50 or fewer members, Jones seems to think it's blimp-sized, judging from what he chose to name the church and how he's identified his Quran burning as an i nternational happening.
I watched Jones being interviewed the other night. He said that no, he had not read the entire Quran, only parts of it, but that he doesn't need to because he already knows what's in it. And what's in it is evil, he said, and by burning Muslims' holy book, he's sending “a warning to radical Islam” that “if you attack us, we will attack you.” To the WWJD question, Jones said that he doesn't believe that Jesus would approve of him burning the Quran. Nevertheless, Jones said he had to pray about whether or not to call the Quran burning off. And pray he did, sitting in a black executive office chair, with hands folded, eyes closed, head bobbing, muttering and feverishly rocking back and forth.
That whole scene brought to mind another pastor named Jones — Jim Jones, who by 1978 had become paranoid, deranged, sexually perverted and generally demonic, former members said in Stanley Nelson's 2006 documentary, “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple.” In a fit of pique and feeling cornered, Jones told his flock that if they loved him, they would join him in an act of revolutionary suicide. And so 909 members, including children, drank a prepared cyanide poison sweetened with a powdery mix and died in “Jonestown,” the enclave that they'd carved out of cleared space in the jungles of Guyana.
Maybe Terry Jones is the spawn, not just of Jim Jones, but also of Osama bin Laden and many other charismatic figures who over centuries have relied on a combination of ignorance, faith, grievance, mysticism and smooth talking to draw near to them people in search of salvation — and if not that, to deliver them from having to make the tough choices that life sometimes requires of us all.
Is this a great country or what when the leader of a tiny church can effectively have the whole world in his hands? Can have the media and leaders from the Vatican, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to Gen. David Petraeus beseeching him not to burn the Muslims' holy book and risk a new surge of violence against Americans, civilian and military, at home and abroad. Maybe all this attention is the fulfillment of Terry Jones' ambition to be perceived as a powerful man on an international stage.
But whatever one thinks of Terry Jones, it seems to me that the doors of the asylum have been flung open. Though local fire law may preclude Jones from setting a bonfire of Qurans, the First Amendment protects his right to strike the match.
Moreover, even if Jones decides not to burn the Qurans, it's not hard to imagine that there are others just like him — egocentric, irresponsible and professing a faith that preaches one thing (love), while they do just the opposite (hate in the name of the Lord) — who are itching for their turn in the spotlight.
Betty Winston Bayé's column appears Thursdays in the Community Forum and online at www.courier-journal.com/opinion. Her e-mail address is bbaye@courier-journal.com.
By Betty Winston Bayé
A lot of people are freaked out by numbers. The numbers 666, for example, are regarded by many as the “mark of the beast” as signified in the Book of Revelations. There are hotels and apartment buildings in which the next stop after the 12th floor is the 14th because the number 13 has come to be associated with witchcraft, death and general bad luck. The number 7, on the other hand, is considered a “lucky” number, and rumor has it that some parents “schedule” childbirth so that their babies won't arrive on a wrong-numbered day.
But for all this, I don't recall number 9 being assigned any special significance, good or bad, and so it is puzzling as to why the ninth anniversary of the dastardly 9/11 terrorist attacks on America that claimed almost 3,000 lives has unleashed a wave of anti-Islam, anti-Muslim sentiment (“hysteria,” actually) in the country that the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth anniversaries did not.
Anyhow, this Saturday, the ninth anniversary of 9/11, is the day that “Pastor” Terry Jones has set as the occasion that he will host his “International Burn a Quran Day” at his church, The Dove World Outreach Center, in Gainesville, Fla. Though his church reportedly has 50 or fewer members, Jones seems to think it's blimp-sized, judging from what he chose to name the church and how he's identified his Quran burning as an i nternational happening.
I watched Jones being interviewed the other night. He said that no, he had not read the entire Quran, only parts of it, but that he doesn't need to because he already knows what's in it. And what's in it is evil, he said, and by burning Muslims' holy book, he's sending “a warning to radical Islam” that “if you attack us, we will attack you.” To the WWJD question, Jones said that he doesn't believe that Jesus would approve of him burning the Quran. Nevertheless, Jones said he had to pray about whether or not to call the Quran burning off. And pray he did, sitting in a black executive office chair, with hands folded, eyes closed, head bobbing, muttering and feverishly rocking back and forth.
That whole scene brought to mind another pastor named Jones — Jim Jones, who by 1978 had become paranoid, deranged, sexually perverted and generally demonic, former members said in Stanley Nelson's 2006 documentary, “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple.” In a fit of pique and feeling cornered, Jones told his flock that if they loved him, they would join him in an act of revolutionary suicide. And so 909 members, including children, drank a prepared cyanide poison sweetened with a powdery mix and died in “Jonestown,” the enclave that they'd carved out of cleared space in the jungles of Guyana.
Maybe Terry Jones is the spawn, not just of Jim Jones, but also of Osama bin Laden and many other charismatic figures who over centuries have relied on a combination of ignorance, faith, grievance, mysticism and smooth talking to draw near to them people in search of salvation — and if not that, to deliver them from having to make the tough choices that life sometimes requires of us all.
Is this a great country or what when the leader of a tiny church can effectively have the whole world in his hands? Can have the media and leaders from the Vatican, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to Gen. David Petraeus beseeching him not to burn the Muslims' holy book and risk a new surge of violence against Americans, civilian and military, at home and abroad. Maybe all this attention is the fulfillment of Terry Jones' ambition to be perceived as a powerful man on an international stage.
But whatever one thinks of Terry Jones, it seems to me that the doors of the asylum have been flung open. Though local fire law may preclude Jones from setting a bonfire of Qurans, the First Amendment protects his right to strike the match.
Moreover, even if Jones decides not to burn the Qurans, it's not hard to imagine that there are others just like him — egocentric, irresponsible and professing a faith that preaches one thing (love), while they do just the opposite (hate in the name of the Lord) — who are itching for their turn in the spotlight.
Betty Winston Bayé's column appears Thursdays in the Community Forum and online at www.courier-journal.com/opinion. Her e-mail address is bbaye@courier-journal.com.
Labels: General information
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 7:36 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home