As Bishops of the Church of Ireland, we join our voice to the widespread international condemnation of the plan to burn copies of the Islamic Sacred scriptures. This deliberate desecration of scriptures sacred to all Muslims is a gratuitous act of sectarianism and totally contrary to the Christian spirit of love and reconciliation. We recognise that the pain of this outrage will be felt by members of Islamic communities throughout the world.
Did they say that when American flags are burned? And the difference is…? Larry
FWIW, none of the three evangelical diocesan bishops, Ken Clarke, Ken Good or Harold Miller signed this.
Hmmm…what did they have to say about this?
[b]Christians in Gaza Fear for Their Lives as Muslims Burn Bibles and Destroy Crosses[/b]
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/285123/christians_in_gaza_fear_for_their_lives.html
One hopes that Their Graces will issue a similar statement the next time a Copt is murdered in Egypt or a Nigerian church, along with its Bibles, is put to the torch. But I’m not holding my breath.
This worldwide outcry is giving monumental credence to absolutely nothing. Namely, a small-time, goofball pastor and his COPIES (yes COPIES) of someone else’s religious writings. The whole thing is an absurd s***-stirring by an opportunistic media who just love to create a controversy.
But then even more disturbing are the clergy and politicians who take the bait and give this guy and his mission even one iota of attention. We can predict this type of reaction from a bunch of over-the-top muslims that want to behead cartoonists, but why do supposedly rational people like these Bishops feel the need to react in any way to this?
How would you feel about a Host desecration, then, because that’s the closest thing I can possibly equate burning pages of the Koran to. We are transferring a lot of what we believe about the physical pages of the Bible on to the Koran, and it’s causing a great deal of misunderstanding. For Muslims, there was no mere ‘inspiration’ for the Koran, but that Mohammed simply wrote down what God was saying. So every jot and tittle are the actual, physical words of God, so that every copy isn’t a mere copy, but actually becomes the intermediary in the relationship between the individual Muslim and God.
There is nothing, other than Host desecration, I think, that we conceptually are able to make a good comparison to. In that context, comparing burning the US flag to the Koran is either offensive to Christians (do we really render the flag intermediary status between us and God? and is it significant that Muslims perceive American Christians as being more offended by burning a flag that has no bearing on our relationship to God?) or simply uninformed.
No, #6, not so. the burning of the flag is an attempt to show hatred and contempt for the US. They flag is burned since we do not have a
bible to burn. To be sure, one is a simple of a country, one of a religion, but each has a symbol which stands for the whole.
Now I am sorry he did not burn the koran because this would at last have forced imam Rauf to justify the subsequent outburst of violence or to demand tolerance from the Islamic world for an act that protects their right to speak too. And can we guess which course the imam would have taken? And can we guess what tolerance the Islamic world would have granted? What we know from the response so far is that Islam would have shown the world just how violent and vicious it can be. Larry
#6 Issac….
No sorry……..a copy is a copy, and it’s only an “intermediary” when it’s in the hands of a true believer. If an entire religious body can become unhinged over one “infidel” (to whom the scriptures mean nothing) then it needs thicker skin and a God that is a whole lot more understanding.