“TO BIGOTRY NO SANCTION, TO PERSECUTION NO ASSISTANCE”

Copyright, Thomas D. Wintle, 2010

A sermon delivered by the Rev. Dr. Thomas D. Wintle at The First Parish Church in Weston, Massachusetts, on September 19, 2010. The scripture readings were Acts 19:11-20 and Matthew 5:38-48.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies . . .” (Mt.5.43f)

I

So just what did you think of the pastor in Florida who threatened to burn Korans on September 11th?

Some thought him to be misguided but within his first amendment rights. Some, including General Petraeus and the Secretary of Defense, thought his planned action would cause great danger to US troops, as evidenced by thousands of protesters in Afghanistan chanting “Death to America” [Globe, 9-13-10, A3]. Many wished that the media had not given so much attention to him and his church of 50 members; though in this age of Facebook and YouTube, images of the burning would have been around the world in hours.

Almost everyone was relieved when he canceled his plans and ended his 15 minutes in the spotlight. But, you know, somebody else is going to do it, probably already has. What’s going on?

I think the excitement generated around all this has been a wake-up call to many people. Something’s going on, something big: there is a high level of anxiety and fear in this country, there has been at least since 9-11 (still very much, make no mistake about it, an open wound in this country) and it’s getting worse. Anxiety and fear inevitably lead to anger. That’s what fuels the demonstrations in Afghanistan; it can fuel book-burning in this country.

Why shouldn’t there be anxiety and fear? There’s something new almost everyday in the paper: “Nairobi neighborhood becomes incubator for Somali extremists,” [9-5-10, A7], “Assailants stabbed a Christian worshiper in the stomach and pounded a minister in the head with a wooden plank as they headed to morning prayers” 25 miles west of Jakarta, Indonesia [9-13-10, A3]. Yesterday’s Globe reported that a man was injured while preparing a letter bomb aimed at the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, and that six Algerians were arrested in London for plotting against the Pope [A3].

How many of you have read The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by the late Samuel Huntington? After the fall of the Soviet Union, Huntington predicted that the principal causes of future wars “would not be nation-state rivalries over trade, territory, or ideology” but rather over “differences in religion, history, language, and tradition.” “Somewhere in the Middle East,” he wrote in 1996, “a half-dozen young men could well be dressed in jeans, drinking Coke, listening to rap, and between their bows to Mecca, putting together a bomb to blow up an American airline.” Five years later it happened.

Now many people have challenged Huntington’s views, and most hope he was wrong. Just one more quote from Huntington (p. 216): “following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, an intercivilizational quasi war developed between Islam and the West.” He calls it a quasi war because not all of Islam is fighting with all of the West, and also because it has been “fought with limited means: terrorism on one side and air power, covert action, and economic sanctions on the other.”

That was in 1996. To those “limited means” we can add the West waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq (“you knocked down two of our buildings,” I heard one person say, “we took down two of your governments”). Plus – did you see what happened last Tuesday? – France voted to ban the burqa, the face-covering garment worn by some Muslim women [WSJ 9-15-10, 1, A12]. The law doesn’t mention Islam or burqas, but simply “forbids people from concealing their faces in public.” Now there could be legitimate law-enforcement reasons for forbidding concealed faces (just as one would not want concealed faces on driver’s license photos). But it gets a little scarier: the proposed fine for offenders is a maximum of 150 euros ($190), but offenders could be asked to attend courses on what the government calls “republican values.” And anyone who encourages others to ignore the ban could face up to a year in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.

Something’s going on, something big. What should we do?

II

A week ago last Tuesday (Sept 7), I joined a number of other clergy at a press conference at the State House before the statue of Mary Dyer. (Mary Dyer, you may know, was the woman hanged in Boston by the Great and General Court in 1660 for the crime of being a Quaker). The conference was about a petition being circulated on the internet – www.ipetitions.com/petition/tobigotrynosanction/ – (you can see the internet address in your Order of Service, and you can even sign the petition online). The title of the petition (and of this sermon) comes from the letter President George Washington wrote to the Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1790 confirming that ours is “a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

The petition condemns terrorists and expresses pain that fear and anxiety and enmity are being directed against Muslim Americans and that “is disfiguring our national soul, is life-threatening to Muslims, and bears the potential of turning good-hearted people against their neighbors.”

Why did I sign the petition and attend the conference? Three reasons:

First, a practical reason: Muslim Americans are our greatest defense against Islamist extremists, and those moderate Muslims deserve our support and encouragement.

I remember a book about anti-Semitism; it was titled The Christian Problem and it argued that discrimination against Jews was not a Jewish problem but a Christian problem and Christians needed to clean up their act to put an end to anti-Semitism. I think that the American Muslims, people who are faithful Muslims and committed to our way of life, are the most effective antidote to the anti-Americanism of al-Qaeda and other Muslim extremists. The rabbi asked Christians to examine what in Christian beliefs and practices contribute to anti-Semitism; moderate Muslims can ask what in Islamic beliefs and practices contribute to anti-Western prejudice? My hunch is that both have a problem with fundamentalists.

Perhaps you saw the article about imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s address in New York last week. He’s the one working on the planned Muslim community center near ground zero. Toward the end of the article, these words: “I’m a devout Muslim … and I’m also a proud American citizen.” Rauf “recalled his shock, as a teenager arriving with his Egyptian family in the 1960s, at a Time magazine cover asking ‘Is God Dead?’ – and his later realization that the United States was a religious country where religion was optional. ‘In that sense, you could say I found my faith in this country,’ he said. ‘The American way of life has helped many Muslims make a conscious decision to embrace their faith. That choice is precious. And that is why America is precious.” [Globe 9-14-10, A2].

Those voices need to be heard in the Muslim world. And they are not going to be heard if noisier voices are trying to burn Korans.

Second, I am worried that if we are so concerned with enemies, potential enemies, future enemies, and threat levels, we may see little else. I heard a speech recently by a Baptist minister who said that condemning others’ religions simply shows our insecurity about our own religion. The Bible talks about welcoming strangers, outcasts, aliens, because we were once strangers, outcasts and aliens ourselves. The book-burning we read about in the Bible was about those magicians who repented of their old ways and burned their own books, not the books of others.

Finally, the third reason I signed the petition and went to the conference was because Jesus told me to do so. He told you too: “love your enemies.” Do you know the genius behind “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; if anyone wants to take your coat, give your cloak as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile”? He’s not advocating surrender, he’s saying let’s stop the escalation of violence, put an end to revenge; the mutual increase of hostility and getting-back-at-them for what they did to us and vice-versa, ENDS WITH ME, IT STOPS HERE.

We need to calm the increasing tensions between Muslims and the West . . . or there WILL BE a Clash of Civilizations.

III

So, my friends, sign the petition if you want. Urge people to calm down, to decrease the stress and anxiety and fear and anger.

There is a wonderful part of the ancient Rule of St. Benedict, the Rule that instructed monasteries in the Middle Ages. Chapter 66 talks about the “porters” of the monastery. At the gate of the monastery they are to station a man of sense and maturity, he must sleep near the gate so that he is always nearby to hear knocks. As soon as he hears a knock, or the voice of a beggar, he shall say: “Thanks be to God . . . Thank God you’ve come.”

Imagine what a world it would be if we welcomed the stranger, the immigrant, the person un-like us, with “Thank God you’ve come.”