We Wonder Why

This morning I was listening to a local radio station and during their news section they stated that a church out of Gainesville, FL had applied for and was denied a burn permit to host a "Quaran-Burning" on September 11th. I thought the station would go into a discussion about the topic, but they passed over it like nothing happened. I was completely shocked and thought wait...did I hear that right? When I realized that my hearing was fine, my second reaction was to check to make sure it wasn't April Fool's Day. As you know it is not April 1st and so I turned to Google to verify the news story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/19/quranburning-church-vows-_n_688217.html

Yep, right there is the first article that popped up with bunches of others. Below is my feelings and reaction to the decision to burn the Quran.


So many times across America we wonder why the world seems so closed off to our invitations to come to church. We wonder why people seem to call us hypocrites, close-minded and judgmental. When I saw the above article it gave me the same feeling I get whenever I go to the doctor with a sore throat and they have to do a strep-test just to rule out strep throat. If you've ever had it done; you know what I mean. It's the worst feeling in the world when the doctor pretty much grabs your tongue and rams a giant q-tip down your throat to swab it to do some sort of tests for strep. Every time they do it I always feel like knocking the guy out when he comes back into the room and says "well, it's not strep." I think I'd rather go through 50 strep tests than read the article again.

It's sad that we are doing to Muslims what we hate that society does to Christians. If we label the entire Muslim religious system as a bunch of terrorists we are allowing them to state that every Christian church is equal to Westborro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. They're the people you see carrying signs outside of military funerals because "God hates our soldiers" and a whole line of other horrible sayings that I'm not even going to post on this blog, but just know they're sickening.

Do we really expect that by carrying a sign saying how much God hates them or for us to burn a bunch of Qurans is going to cause Muslims to come flocking to our churches to accept Christ? Jesus set the example that we are to love our neighbors and serve one another. I feel as if it is time we stop burning books and use that energy to love these people where they are.