From time to time, demonstrators choose to burn something to show their approval or disapproval. It’s nearly always a bad idea.
Sometimes – fortunately not often these days – members of the Ku Klux Klan have engaged in cross burnings. Such things are always disgusting and inappropriate. And they defile the symbolism of the cross.
Some people, most unfortunately, have demonstrated by burning the American flag.
And some equally ill-advised people have burned the Bible in flagrantly objectionable demonstrations.
Now, a Christian pastor in Gainesville, Fla., has announced that on Sept. 11, he and his very few followers (fewer than a hundred) plan to burn copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in a defiant demonstration to recall the Sept. 11, 2001, attack by radical Muslims who hijacked airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center in New York City and into the Pentagon.
The announced plan to burn the Qurans should be condemned by Americans, for a number of strong reasons.
Christians and other Americans certainly should not stoop to demonstrating in a way that would reflect objectionably upon themselves – not just against Muslims.
But in addition, a public demonstration involving the burning of the Quran surely would be highly publicized all over the world – inflaming millions of Muslims, the peaceful ones as well as the radicals.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO military commander in Afghanistan, said “images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan – and around the world – to inflame public opinion and incite violence.”
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, “While it may well be within someone’s right to take this action, we hope cooler heads will prevail.”
But most of all, such a thing as burning the Quran should not be done – simply because it would be “non-Christian.”