Monday, May 16, 2005
Just a book...
It's one of the few Sunday School lessons I remember well, and I'm proud to say my dad was the one who taught it. He walked into our classroom, holding a Bible high in one hand. A band of teenage smartasses who were way too cool for organized religion awaited yet another futile attempt to relate the message of Jesus Christ to our daily lives. Nothing we hadn't heard (and ignored) before. It came as quite a shock when my dad opened the lesson by slamming the Bible down on the ground.
"It's just a book," he said.
He then picked it up, and bent the cover, ripped a page or two, tossed it in the air - he may have even stepped on it. Then he said it again.
"It's just a book."
What mattered, he said, were the lessons the book contained. The ideas the book presented, the way of life the book offered. To say the Bible is sacred is correct, but only if you understand the Bible to be the message of the book, and not the ink and paper itself. Treating the physical symbols with respect is all well and good, but to him, Christ didn't want us to have Bibles that were pretty. He wanted us to have Bibles that were read. That were lived. And the surprising tactic he used to start his lesson brought him the rapt attention of a class generally predisposed to allow religious instruction to flow in one ear and out the other. I don't know how good a Christian I am, but I'm pretty sure I'm a better one because my father once threw a Bible on the floor.
I don't know whether Newsweek rushed a story they thought would embarrass the President, if they're guilty of simple shoddy reporting, or what the heck happened there. I hope it gets sorted out, and if there was a mistake, that whoever made it gets called to account. But I really hope that whatever media storm unfurls doesn't obscure the fact that a rumor that something disrespectful was done to a book was taken as cause to start a violent riot that led to the deaths of people who didn't even have anything to do with disrespecting the book. I don't believe that Islam requires this type of conduct. I don't believe Muslims are incapable of behaving rationally when confronted with an accusation of disrespect. (An accusation that is far from proven.) And I don't believe that this type of rage warrants concessions on our part.
I agree with Karol and Dawn that the blame for the deaths rests primarily, if not solely, with the rioters. This article, cited by a commentor on the thread at Karol's cite, offers a valiant attempt to explain how the Koran is more than a Bible or Torah. What remains unexplained is why people who do not accept the supremacy of the Koran are obligated to act as though they do. What happened is aspiring tyrants found an excuse to kill and demand to have things their way. Had this particular excuse not presented itself, they'd have found another one. Hopefully the rush to get scalps out of Newsweek won't hide that fact.
"It's just a book," he said.
He then picked it up, and bent the cover, ripped a page or two, tossed it in the air - he may have even stepped on it. Then he said it again.
"It's just a book."
What mattered, he said, were the lessons the book contained. The ideas the book presented, the way of life the book offered. To say the Bible is sacred is correct, but only if you understand the Bible to be the message of the book, and not the ink and paper itself. Treating the physical symbols with respect is all well and good, but to him, Christ didn't want us to have Bibles that were pretty. He wanted us to have Bibles that were read. That were lived. And the surprising tactic he used to start his lesson brought him the rapt attention of a class generally predisposed to allow religious instruction to flow in one ear and out the other. I don't know how good a Christian I am, but I'm pretty sure I'm a better one because my father once threw a Bible on the floor.
I don't know whether Newsweek rushed a story they thought would embarrass the President, if they're guilty of simple shoddy reporting, or what the heck happened there. I hope it gets sorted out, and if there was a mistake, that whoever made it gets called to account. But I really hope that whatever media storm unfurls doesn't obscure the fact that a rumor that something disrespectful was done to a book was taken as cause to start a violent riot that led to the deaths of people who didn't even have anything to do with disrespecting the book. I don't believe that Islam requires this type of conduct. I don't believe Muslims are incapable of behaving rationally when confronted with an accusation of disrespect. (An accusation that is far from proven.) And I don't believe that this type of rage warrants concessions on our part.
I agree with Karol and Dawn that the blame for the deaths rests primarily, if not solely, with the rioters. This article, cited by a commentor on the thread at Karol's cite, offers a valiant attempt to explain how the Koran is more than a Bible or Torah. What remains unexplained is why people who do not accept the supremacy of the Koran are obligated to act as though they do. What happened is aspiring tyrants found an excuse to kill and demand to have things their way. Had this particular excuse not presented itself, they'd have found another one. Hopefully the rush to get scalps out of Newsweek won't hide that fact.
