In a world where everybody is protesting something, there are certainly some protests and displays that are sure to garner more attention than others.  A church in Florida deciding to publicly burn the sacred text of the Islam faith is sure to qualify.

Since I am a pastor, and thereby uncritically placed on the same team as these folks in the minds of most, I felt a stirring to write my thoughts on the matter.  And I start where most folks these days seem to start and that is simply asking a cliche question:  “What Would Jesus Do?”

And my answer to that question is formed from looking at this from a completely different angle than most folks are.  Most people are going to ask the question whether it is wise or discretionary to do something so outrageously offensive to the Muslims.  They’ll ask questions such as “Will this incite more terror?”  or “Will this hurt our troops overseas or make Americans overseas more of a target?” etc etc.

The real question to me is this:  “Does Jesus Need Defending?”  I mean, at the heart of it, this church is doing this to make a statement that Jesus is superior to Allah.  They are making a public display of their feelings towards Muslims and their beliefs.  And at the heart of this protest is a belief that if they don’t do something such as this and bring awareness to their feelings, that Islam stands a better chance of advancing and Jesus is in really deep trouble. In street talk - it’s a way of religious people saying “We Gotta Fight - For Our Right - To Jesus”

The problem is, what kind of Jesus does that portray?  If Christ is coming back on a white horse with a flaming sword one day to put all His enemies under His feet, then this type of protest kinda conjures up a pretty lame Savior.  It sorta says “Hey, one day I’ll make all these people bow to me, but right now I’m kinda unable to do anything, so let’s resort to poking them in the eye by burning their sacred text - that’ll rally the troops to help my cause out — and if we raise enough awareness - maybe we can beat these heathens back a little cause right now we’re getting our butts handed to us on a plate”.

You see the problem there?  Jesus never presented His mission as one of defending Him.  He presented it as a mission of confident victory.  And in the confidence that the outcome is sure, we (as Christians) are free to go on the offensive not with protests and media circus’ but rather love, humility, service, and even freely laying down our lives that would seek to kill us because of our beliefs.

And if you look hard enough, you’ll see that no where in the New Testament where any follower of Christ blatantly took the opportunity to desecrate someone else’s holy.  Paul didn’t walk into the temple eating pork steak and burning the Isaiah scroll.  Thomas didn’t go to India and start passing out hamburgers.  Luke didn’t enter Rome and burn the Caesar’s image in effigy.  Why?  Because if the goal of the mission of Christ is to see hell less full, then it doesn’t make sense to do something so blatantly offensive that it absolutely destroys the chance of the person hearing the gospel.

Burning a sacred text and making a media circus of it isn’t courageous.  It’s cowardice.  It’s refusing to trust Jesus with our lives and with our love.  It’s a modern day example of Jonah and his hatred of Ninevah.  What takes courage is to be a living example of the gospel.  To leave comfortable America, make friends in a foreign land, lovingly call them to repent, attempt to persuade them of the Jesus who created them, and when they kill you for it, not to be offended by their slaughter, but rather pray for their forgiveness.

The saying wasn’t “love your friends and provoke your enemies by finding their most sacred object and stomping all over it”..the saying said “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”

I think Jesus would put the lighter down and encourage us to pick the cross up.