Burning Qurans and Jump-Starting Your Own Hateful Church

Back at the beginning of July, only a few hundred (perhaps thousand) people had ever heard of Pastor Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center. But in mid-July, as reported by The Florida Independent, Jones and his followers organized a couple events that brought them immediate local attention in Gainesville, Florida. It wasn't long before news of the events, noted for their intolerance and inflammatory messages, went statewide, national, and international.

The first event, "No Homo Mayor Project," which was organized to protest the Gainesville mayorship of Craig Lowe, an open homosexual, became a supporting prop for the second. The second event, "International Burn a Quran Day," seemed to strike a chord that kept resounding, amplified by media attention and the reactions and responses of celebrities, world leaders, religions, and anyone willing to voice an opinion via the Internet.

Now just about everyone knows about and has an opinion about the Dove World Outreach Center and Jones' insensitive and inflammatory intent to hold an "International Burn a Quran Day." But Pastor Terry Jones' message of hate, intolerance, and ignorance has been seen before -- and it worked to gain that small religious entity a place on the world stage as well.

It seems that Pastor Terry Jones has taken a page out of the book of Phelps -- the Reverend Fred Phelps of the extremely controversial Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. No one outside of a few in Kansas and the surrounding area had ever heard of Fred Phelps or his small group of fanatic fundamentalists until they began to issue statements about who and what god hates and show up at celebrity and military funerals to protest. They have issued statements about actor Heath Ledger, comedian Bernie Mac, and singer Ronnie James Dio, among others, over the years, condemning them to hell and spouting biblical verse as justification for such condemnation.

The members of Westboro Baptist Church even took it upon themselves to picket wakes and funerals, especially if those ceremonies were for famed homosexuals or someone who had supported gay causes. But the tiny congregation really began to gain national attention when they began protesting at the funerals of deceased American soldiers. With signs emblazoned with "God Hates Fags" and "God Hates America," Reverend Fred Phelps and company attempted to get across their message that the United States was suffering retribution for its foreign and domestic policies because said policies conflicted with biblical verse and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Although Terry Jones and his group of around 100 congregants at the Dove World Outreach Center seem nearly as intolerant and hateful as the minions of Phelps, Jones does seem to draw the line at openly attacking the military and its members and at least certain members of the government. Still, he maintains that Christianity -- or at least his version of it -- is the only true belief system and that its tenets are sacrosanct.

It would seem that Jones practices a somewhat softer hate than Phelps, but it is hate nonetheless. It is fueled by intolerance and ignorance, just not as vitriolic and starkly black-and-white. Almost, but not quite. It is a difference worthy of comment, although negligible.

The two fundamentalist churches, though one is Baptist and the other nondenominational, are similar in their meteoric rise to fame on the back of manufactured controversies. Phelps attacked the Hollywood and celebrity establishment types and American foreign policy. He and his followers drew attention to their message by attacking gays and deceased soldiers, seen as props for and promoters of the incorrigible, sinful, and corrupt in American society. Jones attacked the gay mayor of Gainesville and took on the entire Islamic faith, protesting that Islam was a religion of violence and had no place in American society. Phelps and company issued caustic statements and picketed. Jones plans to burn the quran, a sacred Muslim holy book.

Morally self-righteous and hate-emboldened, the two small churches became world-famous due to their extreme controversial messages -- with the help of continuing media exposure and widespread public outrage. A vicious cycle exists in the media feeding off of and into the public's consumption and reaction to the manufactured controversies, which in turn gives the churches added publicity, a much wider platform, and something to react against themselves -- like public condemnation. Nothing feeds the media cycle like controversy.

Some maintain that Phelps and Jones are simply delusional religious fanatics hellbent on promoting their exclusivist belief systems and attracting more members to their respective congregations for reasons of self-sustenance. Others find that, although it may be true that the churches are looking for adherents and converts, they are also intent on proving their point, justifying their particular stance.

And what better justification than the presumed morally inferior, the foreign and alien?

What Reverend Fred Phelps and Pastor Terry Jones have done is tapped into the tried-and-true methods of building something from nothing -- in more ways than one. By fabricating controversies -- there should be no gay mayors, gays are ruining American society, American soldiers deserve to die because they fight for a corrupt government, Islam is a violent religion and must be stopped (symbolically, by burning the quran) -- from non-issues and stereotype-driven prejudices, the churches fuel their hate-filled agendas to propagate and perpetuate themselves and their chosen, exclusivist beliefs. If they are attacked, they are persecuted in the tradition of religious zealots and martyrs of old. If they are believed and gain strength, they are exalted.

They cannot lose.

Creating and/or becoming involved in controversy has become a sure-fire way to jump-start celebrity, push political careers, promote television shows, and even gain attention for little-known preachers and small churches.

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Source:

FloridaIndenpendent.com