logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Nonprofit Newswire | Pastor Reconsiders Plans to Burn Koran

Rick Cohen
September 10, 2010
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

September 8, 2010; Source: Wall Street Journal | The Florida pastor planning a burning of the Koran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks said Thursday he has cancelled the event. The pastor’s announcement came after a personal appeal to him from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and follows other critical statements including one from President Obama.

The pastor, Terry Jones, said that he had reached a deal with the imam planning the center, Feisal Abdul Rauf, to move the Islamic center far from ground zero. This statement seems to be false. Rauf said he had not spoken to Jones or Muhammad Musri, the Orlando Imam who has been acting as a mediator between New York and Gainesville.

This isn’t the first time the NPQ Newswire has taken note of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla. This past March, we wrote about the church’s propensity to wield ugly signs about people and religions that its leader, Terry Jones, and its 50 (yes, only 50) members don’t like, such as one equating Islam with the devil.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, had suggested that a public burning of the Koran could be used to generate animosity toward the U.S. and put U.S. troops in harm’s way. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Republican and Democratic candidates for Florida governor, and Sarah Palin have all denounced the Dove event.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

An official in Iran called Jones a “Christian Zionist” and concluded that he was supported by Israel. Gainesville’s mayor, denounced in an earlier Dove video and City Hall protest as the “homo mayor” (threatening the church’s tax exemption) called the Dove church “an embarrassment to the community.” However, the ACLU has gingerly supported the church’s right to free speech, suggesting that even disgusting sentiments are protected by the constitution (the ACLU is suing the local public schools to support the rights of two children of Dove World Outreach families who wore “Islam is of the Devil” t-shirts to school last year).

Put this in context. Whether it is the proposed construction of an Islamic center two football field lengths away from Ground Zero of the 9/11 attacks, protests and vandalism at a proposed mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn., or this micro-church’s now-cancelled plan to publicly burn Islam’s sacred text, there is an unfortunate, to say the least, outpouring recently of anti-Islamic sentiment.

Even a 50-member church in central Florida can do something that attracts attention—negative attention—throughout the world. The wall between local, national, and international is now extremely porous due to cable TV and the Internet. For all the attention the ugly Dove World Outreach non-event has gotten, the nonprofit sector ought to stand up for values of tolerance and inclusiveness and make it clear to the world that the tiny Gainesville church’s name misappropriates the symbolism inherent in the word “dove”. A dove symbolizes beauty, gentility, and charity. We see absolutely none of those meanings in the planned Koran burning.

A clarifying addendum is needed on Pastor Terry Jones and his tiny Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla. According to the AP, conservative religious groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals and the Southern Baptist Convention have tried to dissuade Jones from his planned Koran-burning on September 11th. One reason they have been unsuccessful is that Jones and Dove are independent, not connected to any other religious body, even though he uses terminology similar to Pentacostalism.—Rick Cohen

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

More about: Nonprofit News

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
The Nonprofit Sector and Social Change: A Conversation between Cyndi Suarez and Claire Dunning
Claire Dunning and Cyndi Suarez
Nonprofits as Battlegrounds for Democracy
Cyndi Suarez
Remaking the Economy: Caring for the Care Economy
Steve Dubb, Adria Powell and Jenn Stowe
Race, Class, and Climate: Organizing for a Better Future in Pueblo, Colorado
Jamie Valdez
Faith as a Pathway to Climate Action
Anmol Irfan
Countering Authoritarianism: Forging a Progressive Response to Fragmentation
john a. powell and Sara Grossman

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
AOC’s “Tax the Rich” Dress Dazzles Met Gala, while...
Anastasia Reesa Tomkin
Foundation Giving Numbers for 2020 Show 15 Percent Increase
Steve Dubb
Strike MoMA Imagines Art Museums without Billionaires
Tessa Crisman

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.