If you are like me, you no doubt are following the story of the pastor in Florida who is considering burning copies of the Quran this weekend. I get a weekly email newsletter from the senior pastor of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas. This is what Rev. Adam Hamilton had to say…
“The short answer is, this is a very bad idea. It does not reflect the spirit or teachings of Jesus Christ or the teachings of the apostles. It is both a publicity stunt and a means of inciting people towards anger and violence. It may somehow feel good to the 50 members of that church, and perhaps to a small fraction of Christians who find in it an outlet for revenge and anger over the words and actions of radical Islam; but it is another example of “when Christians get it wrong.”
I want to mention briefly two stories that illustrate a United Methodist approach to Christian-Muslim relations and how it contrasts with the “Dove World Outreach Center’s” approach (Dove is the 50 member church proposing to burn the Quran).
Dan Johnson is the Senior Pastor of the Trinity United Methodist Church in Gainesville, Florida. The Church Council at Gainesville voted last week to hold a service tonight for the greater Gainesville area to pray for Muslims and to express their opposition to the “burn a Quran” event and to pray for the Muslim people in their community, expressing their care for them. Thousands will join them for this event and it will send a message that the Christian gospel calls us not to insult or provoke our neighbors, but to love them.
Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Ohio, led by my pastor Mike Slaughter, has spent the last five years building wells and schools in Darfur among impoverished Muslim populations as an expression of the love of Christ. The perception Muslims in those communities have of Christians has been forever shaped by the fact that their children no longer die of dysentery and they have schools to attend built by Christians in America.
This kind of work, not burning a Quran, has the power to change not only the future of Christian-Muslim relations, but the lives of those who experience this kind of sacrificial love.“
I hope you will join me in praying that the pastor of Dover World Outreach Center will experience a change of heart and come to the conclusion that burning copies of the Quran is a terrible idea.
The Ben-e-diction: May we continue to model the sacrificial love of Christ for all the world to see and may we continue to pray for peace on all fronts.
