Don’t Judge Islam By Terror
By LOWELL GRISHAM
Sunday, September 5, 2010
I first heard about the controversy over the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero from my classmate, Barbara Crafton. She was so disheartened. Barbara lost friends on 9/11, and, as she says, “I did my share of funerals with no bodies to bury.” She was a chaplain during the year long recovery operation. “It was hell,” she says.
It was also a place where love grew. She saw the outpouring of help that came from “every nation, every race, every religion.” Now she is dispirited by those who object to a place of prayer and community support for their Muslim neighbors in that place.
My friend Fred Burnham served as a priest at nearby Trinity Church on 9/11. On two occasions that day he was certain that he was going to die. He describes his close friend Feisel Abdul Rauf as “the most irenic, thoughtful, man of peace that I know.” Feisel and Fred helped lead the Abrahamic Initiative for interfaith dialogue long before the attacks. Fred supports Imam Feisal’s dream of an Islamic Center in their old neighborhood.
The current Vicar of Trinity Church, Anne Mallonee, spoke publicly in support of the Center, reminding listeners that Feisal Abdul Rauf and Trinity Television worked together right after 9/11 to produce a piece to promote dialogue and mutual understanding in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
The proposed Center would have a gym, an auditorium, a restaurant and culinary school, a library, art studios, child care, prayer/contemplation/ worship space, and a memorial for those who lost their lives on 9/11, including the 59 victims who were Muslim. All facilities will be open to the public, not just Muslims. It has passed New York’s strenuous permit process, where neighbors are given great power to influence proposed buildings. Recently my seminary in NYC was blocked from a modest planned expansion because neighbors said it was too tall. The Islamic Center is welcomed by its neighbors.
We are Americans.
Shouldn’t Americans be free to worship and pray?
The First Amendment gives us freedom of religion. To prevent the free exercise of religion is to attack our Constitution. Will thepowerful lobbies for the Second Amendment also stand up in defense of the First?
There are only two reasons why anyone would oppose this building. 1. Some people blame all Muslims for the actions of a few. 2. Some people simply hate Islam. Bad reasons.
We didn’t blame Christians when the Ku Klux Klan bombed synagogues, lynched black people and killed civil rights workers; we didn’t call them “Christian terrorists.” All conservatives should not be blamed for the deaths of the children at the day care center in the Oklahoma City Federal Building because of Timothy McVeigh.
Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are criminals, violent extremists who want to provoke a religious war.
People who see Islam only through their lens of terror have swallowed their evil bait.
Instead of attacking moderate, pluralistic Muslims like Feisal Abdul Rauf, we should be uniting the mainstream faithful of all religions against the extremists of every stripe.
We have our own Christian extremists.
The American Family Foundation’s director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy, Bryan Fischer said this: “Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America… This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.” He went on to say it was okay for them to build if they would only “publicly renounce the Koran, … Allah and his messenger Mohammed.” Crazy speech, right? But completely permissible under the First Amendment.
Please don’t think what he says has any valid relationship with my religion though, and it certainly betrays the life of Jesus Christ. Don’t think all Christians are like that one.
Let the good Christians and the good Muslims work together.
Do you know what our Muslim neighbors here have done? My friend Ali Sadiqui of the Islamic Center of Northwest Arkansas says that their community will postpone this year’s traditional Eid al-Fitr Festival at the end of Ramadan on the weekend of Sept. 11 out of respect for our community.
That’s like Christians postponing Easter because of an anniversary of an Islamic tragedy. Amazing generosity.
Friendships. Lowell and Ali. Fred and Feisel. Perfect love casts out fear.
LOWELL GRISHAM IS AN EPISCOPAL PRIEST WHO LIVES IN FAYETTEVILLE"
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