This is hard to imagine. But the extreme secularism of western incarnations of Christianity makes this kind of thing plausible to me. Many Western Christians have such a diluted view of the Bible that it doesn’t seem at first that it is the same as asking a Muslims to be willing to burn the Q’uran, which is so clearly contrary to their mindset. But it is the same, and Christians should refuse.

The US military presence in Afghanistan is a violation of Afghanistan sovereignty already, so the “infidel” soldiers distributing Bibles would look like it is only another part of their “holy war” toward the Muslims. To me it looks like a terrible hypocrisy. The real question here should be, can an invading soldier really be a Christian. However, the Bibles should have not been burned but should have been given to some Christian NGO working in Afghanistan for them to distribute at their discretion.

Why is it that “devoutly Muslim” nations (is there any other kind?) feel the need to protect their people from the Bible?

This is ridiculous and one more example that the USA is nothing more than a kingdom of the world. It has not ever, nor will it ever, embody the principles so dear to the kingdom Jesus established. Ironically, this news follows the release of the American Patriot’s Bible from Thomas Nelson…

First,
I love the blog and am encouraged, shaped, and challenged by it in many ways.
Read it regularly for couple of years, never commented. Not sure why this is first comment, respectfully submitted.
“Real Christians would simply refuse to burn the Bible.”
I simply do not share this sentiment. Using the phrase “Real Christians would or would not…” seems to be ignoring much of the history and life we have from and with God. Peter a “real Christian?” denied even knowing Jesus and we have for thousands of years continued to fall flat on our faces (I more than many) despite being real (I hope) Christians by the grace of God. It seems quite similar to saying real Jews would observe the Sabbath
Specifically regarding the Bible, it seems a little legalistic and idolatrous to hold the ink and paper that the Bible is printed on to be so important. It seems quite similar to saying real Jews would observe the Sabbath. The ink and paper are for man rather than man for the ink and paper, or pixels, or audio recordings or whatever form it is in. When we type verses of scripture in a word document or e-mail are we never to delete them because they are the words of scripture? The Word of God will stand forever, but paper and print will not. Every Bible ever printed will one day go the way of newspapers, textbooks, and other printed material, but the truth regarding the world, the love of God made evident to all of creation in and through Jesus, and the hope of his coming kingdom will not perish. It is being written on the hearts of His children by the Spirit. These are views from a different angle, so they make me think that even if they aren’t right, they at least make it seem not so simple to say what real Christians should or would do.
Thanks again for your blog, your wisdom and your example.

Thanks for these comments, one and all. PDR I take your point. What I should have said is, Christians behaving appropriately would never do that. What most frosts my cake about this is that our troops have drilled into them that under no circumstances are they to show disrespect for the Koran, never mind avoiding burning one. It’s such a ridiculous double standard, especially for American Christians serving in the military.
Blessings,
BW3

I’m not happy about the barring of proselytizing activities in the military, although I somewhat understand why. What I am appalled at is the burning itself. It was probably from a lack of deep thought concerning how the military and the American government would be viewed after such an act. It would have been more prudent to return the products to the sender and attach a notice concerning the rules of interaction between the military and an occupied country. Anyone wanting to share the Good News reflected by the documents should be allowed to come in on his own and act. Just my two-cents on the matter

Ben,
This is a tough one. I would have liked to have heard the other side of the story. That perhaps several US Solders and Marines have lost their lives, who otherwise might not have, due to Bibles sent by a church to the people in Afghanistan? That the missions to find, capture, or kill Osama Bin Laden has been delayed due to missions to bring in Bibles?

This story reminds me of our need to confess, “Jesus is Lord.” Not the U.S. Army, not the President of the Untied States of America, not even my political party!
I once heard a true and very moving account of a Christian from an Horn of Africa nation refuse to burn a Bible to the point of having his arm forcibly held in the fire. Once it was withdrawn there were no burns!
I mourn for our soldiers who were told to burn their “trash.” I mourn for our nation.

What do you do with your bible when the cover falls off and half the pages are missing? Give it a proper burial?
An action can by symbolic. Or it can mean nothing. When thousands of people stand outside a government office, they may be demanding a right. But they might be in line for ice cream. Someone can turn the other cheek to show they won’t fight an aggressor, or, they can turn the other cheek because they lost a contact. I don’t think the military is burning these bibles to make a statement about the bible. I think they realized they have a policy (one that I agree with) and they have a lot of bibles to dispose of. Perhaps it would be better to give them away, but I don’t think that burning them is necessarily a horrible offense. As was already mentioned, it’s the words that have the power, not the ink and paper. Even though I have the bible on my iPhone, I intend on throwing it out once it stops working.
As far as the military not proselytizing, I don’t want them to represent Christianity. The fact that they’re shooting at their enemies alone makes me glad that they aren’t trying to represent Christ. I don’t want to ever have to explain to an Afghan person why someone told them about Jesus and then tried to shoot them.

Respectfully, I concur with PDR. I am also a first-time poster, and I appreciate this blog. If you know someone who has spent time in Bagram, talk to that person about the conditions our military personnel are under there. It is strident, personally as well as corporately. Rather than speak against our military for not carrying out missionary activities, I would recommend praying for and finding ways to minister to these men and women, who are far from home and in much danger, even in the “safe” zones. I would suggest that the church that sent the Bibles should have found a distributor not related to the military. I agree that it is a sad waste that they must be burned, but it seems to me the church that sent them brought this about by not learning the whole of things before placing expectations on our military to be their conduit.

The above comment was mine. Somehow my name was lost in the posting.
Blessings,
Patricia

No one’s asking the military to hand out Bibles or to engage in ministry of that sort. That’s not part of this story at all and not a response to what is objectionable about this activity. The issue is— why was the Bible burned in this situation? It’s because of what it represents to Muslims. If it was just a case of worn out Bibles that’s an entirely different matter. But they weren’t.
BW3

If it was any other book being burned, I wonder what the ACLU would say about it.

It was foolish and reckless of a religious organization to presume to try to assign to a soldier of the United States army the duty of spreading the Christian religion in a fiercely Muslim state. In their ignorance and arrogance these apostles acted to undermine the American mission in Afghanistan and to put at risk the lives of American soldiers.
Also to blame are the NCOs and officers of the units to which the soldier belongs. They might have anticipated what happened and taken measures to prevent its occurrence. But one fears that in today’s Christianized army some officers and NCOs may have winked.
Those who sent the Bibles put responsible American officers in a dilemma–either dispose of the Bibles or implicate troops in an a wrongful activity that put American lives at risk. These officers made the right choice, and are to be commended.

Ben, I too, love the blog (as I did your commentary on Acts). Keep up the great work! I’m retired from the Air Force and this post reminds me of a personal experience I had in Riyadh in ’98. I had ordered 4 or 5 theology books in the mail from a Christian website only to receive a nasty-gram in the mail from the military post office threatening to revoke my mail privileges if I received such religious material again. The “offensive” material was solely theological studies, in English, for my own edification. I pursued the matter further thinking that it was simply a misunderstanding and was shocked to find that a CENTAF postal regulation prohibited airman from receiving religious materials in the mail (along with pornography and a few other sordid genres of material). It was only through the efforts of the base chaplain that I was able to obtain my purchase. It seems that they were exempt from receiving religious material since it was in the course of their official duties. I signed a piece of paper transferring ownership to him, who subsequently gave them to me. The chaplain inquired about the incident with postal employees and was told that the Saudi customs official had seen the box clearly marked with “Christian Book Distributors” and simply went on his way. The ones who really were offended were the military postal inspectors since it violated a regulation. The chaplain vowed to elevate the matter to his chain of command and rescind the regulation. The whole affair really opened my eyes to how misguided our govt’s policies can be concerning religious matters.

Thanks for sharing Derek. This ought to open a few eyes.
BW3

When I was in Pakistan in 1981, working with a Christian refugee relief agency, we regularly encountered Mullahs in villages who asked for copies of the Bible. At that time, they believed that it was a sacred text. Most had never read one. My how times have changed.

I agree with you Ben. Why couldn’t the Bibles have been given to an appropriate missions agency or sent back to the Church that sent them? The double standard is incredible. Throw away or burn a copy of the Koran and the outcry is incredible.

“No one’s asking the military to hand out Bibles or to engage in ministry of that sort.” My understanding is that is exactly what was being asked of our troops. To have handed them over to a missionary organization or to make them available to the villages would have made our military a partner and conduit in proselytizing. The church has its own responsibilities, and the responsibility to find its own way to reach hearts and minds of all nations with the Gospel. The military’s mission is defined militarily, by those who hold office and rank. Our soldiers are not just “shooting at” people. They are protecting innocent villagers from insurgents sending car bombs into their marketplaces, and mortor fire into their homes, and those using firepower to drive women and children scattering into yet undetonated mine fields. The military does not “send back” anything sent. It simply disposes.
“why was the Bible burned in this situation? It’s because of what it represents to Muslims.” That is true, and objectionable. But that is the parameter set by governments for our troops on foreign soil, not set by the soldiers themselves. They are not serving in a democratic state, where freedom of speech and religion are guaranteed constitutionally to citizens or deployed troops.

We all know how this would’ve turned out if these were Qurans that were burned

I’m a Christian and this doesn’t bother me in the least. It’s not the responsibility of the military arm of the US government to proselytize another country. I say let them burn our Bibles, discriminate against us, close our churches, do whatever it is that “they” do. After all, “they” is really us (remember that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed–Dec of Indep) and there are probably channels where people who share Ben’s outrage can get this stuff sorted out.
But why the outrage? What’s the command of Jesus that this behavior implicates? It’s not there. I don’t think Jesus would give a rip. Christians don’t have rights. They have the gospel, they know Jesus is Lord, they know that even now he reigns and that we have been given his Holy Spirit to do his will on earth as it is heaven, to be the aroma of Christ. Getting our knickers tied in knots because our government isn’t behaving like a good Christian sounds like whining, like there’s power in these Bibles. I don’t think so. Getting Bibles into Afghan might be helpful but it’s not the same thing as a real live human being living a servant’s life in whatever circumstances God places him. If our boys in Afghanistan are Christians, there’s plenty of good they can do for the sake of the kingdom.
Ben is completely offbase here.

Thanks Hans for another point of view. I would suggest you watch the DVD of the life story of William Tyndale, and see if you still think this.
The Bible is the Word of God. It has changed as many lives as the witness of human lives have. To disrespect the Bible is to disrespect the Word of God whether written, Incarnate or oral. Many Christians have and are giving their lives for the sake of having or keeping Bibles. We have Chinese Christians sowing it into their shoes so they will have it in jail. That our government cannot show the same respect for the Bible that they are prepared to give to the Koran as a ‘holy book’ is pathetic, and should serve to remind us all of what happened in Nazi Germany on Crystalnacht. It matters, and our reaction to such a thing tells us a lot about our own attitudes, both appropriate and inappropriate for Christians. First they ask you to remove your religious symbols and they destroy them. Then they come for you.
BW3

I understand what you are saying Patricia but have a question for you? If the roles were reversed and the US Army was in an area dominated by Christians –say the Koran was considered offensive, do you think they would burn their copies of the Koran?
I don’t. This is not about the ability of the US Army to perform it’s mission. This is epitome of political correctness.

While burning was probably an inappropriate way to dispose of the bibles, the fact that we can mix up Christianity and the military in this was would be very inappropriate. It is already seen by many in the Muslim world to be a Christian invasion of Muslim countries. The US has already refused to commit to leaving completely and the US Army having bibles to be distributed (even under non-military means) confuses what is going on. I think you are off base here Ben. Appreciate your blog, but I have to disagree.

Ben,
The US has apparently a long history with dealing with Islam in surprising ways, implying that we are not crusading, I guess. Here is article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli (you know from the Marines’ Hymn “… to the shores of Tripoli”) that was signed by President John Adams on June 10, 1797. Barbary Pirates were attacking US ships, Jefferson sent troops … then there was a Treaty. Article 11 is a surprise. I suppose, there is a distant relationship the attitude implied in article 11 with the policy of burning Bibles in an Islamic nation.
http://candst.tripod.com/tripoli1.htm
ARTICLE 11 As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries
Jerry

Frank,
There is clearly a disconnect between what the reality is for our troops, and the perception of what our service members “should” do. Distributing religious literature is NOT part of the military mission, and they would not “send them back,” even if it was a Quaran.
Think about this as a reversal: if foreign Muslim troops were occupying your home town, protecting your home and your children’s school from insurgents who would kill your family without conscience, would that give Muslim soldiers license to use their military presence to distribute the Quaran in your neighborhood?
The reality is that the American military, with many good Christian officers and service members I know personally – are occupying a land in which their presence is not welcome, and their lives are at risk, though they are doing much to SAVE lives, rather than take them. I understand that Christians believe any rules restricting their brand of evangelism is a matter of “obeying man’s laws rather than God’s.” Just as an example, at the swimming pool last weekend, a couple had their music from their car stereo blaring in violation of the noise ordinance at a state park. When asked to turn it down, they retorted, “But it’s Christian!”

Ben: I am really surprised by your response and by your very debatable assertion that the Bible has changed as many lives as the witness of human lives. I agree that getting the Word of God to people is important. I disagree that a branch of the US armed services has any business doing that.
Moreover, do you really think the guys burning these Bibles hate the Word of God? Doesn’t motivation enter into determining whether the Bible is being disrespected? Or are you suggesting that once the Bible is printed, it becomes something sacred that must treated differently than some other book?
And how you can compare this to krystallnacht is beyond me. Please help me understand how destroying bibles is analogous to state-sponsored pogroms that targeted Jewish businesses, raided houses and kidnapped tens of thousands of families and killed a number of Jews.
My guess is that behind this action is an understandable concern to minimize the false notion that we are fighting a holy war. You know better than most that young, homeless and poor kids in muslim countries are prime targets for recruitment into islamic fundamentalism. We’re in Afghanistan to root out a terrorist organization. This is a military operation first and last and to make this an issue about respect for God’s word is very unwise. I think the Treaty Jeremy quoted expresses a much wiser approach, that the United States has no business distributing Bibles while fighting a war. I agree with Adam that there were probably better ways of insuring that these bibles weren’t distributed but I don’t think this smacks of political correctness or disrespect for the Bible. The US government does not represent the Christian faith. It represents all citizens of any faith or no faith at all and simply has no business distributing Bibles. Patricia makes that point very well. Do you disagree?

Oops. Saw your earlier post about “distribution” being a non-issue and that your beef is simply with what you perceive to be a double standard. Raises an interesting question: Isn’t it true muslims see the physical Koran as holy and, if so, isn’t respect for the physical Koran (not its teaching) a sensible policy for an occupying force to adopt?
I’m not aware of a comparable Christian doctrine that venerates the physical Bible in the same way muslims venerate the Koran. I don’t see the double standard you see.

Well this has become a really interesting discussion. And I will say one more time, the issue here has to do with what was done with the Bibles. The issue we are discussing here is not whether or not the Army should distribute Bibles, which I agree that’s not their job any more than they should be distributing Korans. The issue here is respect. Respect not only for the Christian religion but for their sacred text, and this action is in no way respectful. Even burying the Bibles would be better. Most Muslims I know from the Middle East do indeed have respect for the Bible as a Holy Book like their Koran. They would find the burning of such a book not merely odd, but probably objectionable!
Blessings,
BW3

Many folks act like the burning of Bibles is awful…why is it so bad? Bibles in themselves are merely pieces of paper with printing on them between a cover, probably paper in this incident. We have enough trouble in the Middle East without being accused of trying to “convert” the population to Christianity or any religion for that matter. Also, are all the soldiers Christian? No. In fact, a few might be of the Muslim faith. As to burning the Koran? Again, pieces of paper with words printed on them between a cover. In itself, neither book is “holy”. That is a distinction put on them by human beings who base their faith on them.

Sorry Patricia. There is no disconnect. If you read my posts I wasn’t advocating that the Army distribute Bibles but to either give them back or donate them to someone who could use them. At no point did I advocate that the Army give out Bibles. You’re arguing against points I wasn’t making.
If these were copies of the Koran they would have been handled differently. There is a double standard.

Frank, The churches that sent the Bible should never have sent them, trying to piggyback the church’s mission onto the military’s. But with them sent, the military disposed of them by burning. That’s your, and Ben’s, objection. I’m addressing the ALTERNATIVES that have been suggested here to the burning (i.e. give to a mission organization, or whatever). THAT would have made the military a conduit. And therein is the expectation of our military gone awry. Though now the suggestion has changed to burying them. Though, if you understood the situation there, burying could involve hitting land mines. And your supposition that quarans would have been handled “differently” is mere supposition. It was Bibles, not Quarans that were sent. And the Muslim methods of evangelism are different to Christian methods anyway.

Professor Witherington’s latest comment brings to mind Herodotus’s discussion of burial customs. Some societies burn their dead, some bury them, still others leave their flesh to be devoured by carrion birds. The Calatians felt obliged to eat them.
Any methods of disposing of corpses we may devise is bound to horrify somebody.
So also methods of disposing of Bibles, or Qurans, for that matter. Indeed, since May 10, 1933, methods of disposing of books.
What’s evident is that a quite compelling need to find a method of disposal did not arise because of any action of US Army officers in Afghanistan.

The first eleven words quoted from the CNN story are a problem for me:
“The UNSOLICITED Bibles sent by a church in the United States…” (emphasis mine).
Why not criticize the unnamed church for putting the U. S. Military in a position to make the decision they eventually made? I am all in favor of bringing the Gospel to Afghanistan, but it should be done by Christian missionaries not the U. S. Military — especially without bothering to ask permission first. In my opinion, the church is entirely to blame for what happened to the Pashto/Dari Bibles.
Let’s put it in a slightly different context. What if the church had secretly placed the Pashto/Dari Bibles in the luggage of a non-Christian traveling to a Muslim country without the knowledge of the traveler. Would anyone say that was an appropriate method of evangelism? If that traveler was found in possession of the Bibles in that country, who should be held responsible for what happens to the traveler? If the traveler chooses to dump the Bibles in a trash can to save his own life, should we blame him or those who put him in that position against his will?
Lt. Col. Wright has the lives of tens of thousands of American soldiers as well as Afghanis to consider. He also has to consider the greater global consequences if Muslims around the world perceive that the U. S. Military is engaging in proselytization. If the radical Muslims/Taliban were allowed to use that as propaganda, it would be catastrophic on a global scale. To ignore that possibility would be irresponsible not just for Lt. Col. Wright, but for “real Christians”, too. To suggest that burying the Pashto/Dari Bibles was an option is simplistic. That which can be buried can be dug up by the enemy. The reason the military burns trash in a war zone is to keep the enemy from getting anything useful to their cause. Like it or not, the only purpose for the Pashto/Dari Bibles would have been a propaganda coup for the Taliban.
Wright did not call the Bible trash. No where in the article does it say that they rounded up all the English Bibles on the post and burned them. There’s a reason for that. It didn’t happen. The Pashto and Dari Bibles had only one purpose – proselytization of Afghanis. Wright didn’t ask for this problem to be laid in his lap. I think it is unfair and irresponsible to blame him for the outcome. Let’s start blaming those who deserve blame, not Lt. Col. Wright who had to clean up the mess of their bad decision.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have a “dog in this fight”. My son is currently serving in a war zone.

Suffice to say, this was not Ben’s finest hour. I hope he now believes that Christians of good will can disagree about the burning of these Bibles. He certainly can’t and doesn’t attempt to defend some of his more hyperbolic statements.
It seems that for Ben the printed page of a Bible is qualitatively different than other kinds of printed material and US policy regarding disposal of what is sacred (at least for a subset of American Christians) should be changed out of respect for their views. Perhaps that will happen if enough Christians protest and can agree on a respectful method of disposal. It just seems like another culture war skirmish that distracts from more important matters.

How is burning a Bible disrespectful? Many cultures consider burning a dead body as a way of sending the spirit/soul of the person back to it’s creator. A Bible, if sacred to a person/religion , would just be sending the “holy” words to some heavenly place.

I would just like to add that my comments were with respect to the particular situation cited by Ben’s blog post. I have been outraged by some of the US government’s double standards with respect to how Christianity and Islam are treated. However, it seems obvious to me that this is not one of those instances. In fact, it seems a bit odd that we are sitting comfortably in front of our computers arguing over whether a military commander in a war zone was a “real Christian” or not because of a decision he made in order to protect the thousands under his command.
We should save the moral outrage for the church that made this an issue and for the politicians who have done infinitely more harm than Lt. Col. Wright.

TomMN:
I hope for the safe return of your son from the war zone he is in. It isn’t easy being the parent of a child in the military.

I’m definitely in agreement with Patricia and Hans Wegner here. I’m sorry to say that they’ve punched big holes in Ben’s argument. Whether burning Bibles is disrespectful or not is a matter of opinion and point of view. I find it hard to believe that it was disrespectful in this case. It was probably the safest and most respectful way of disposing of them in this situation. Tossing them in the latrine or trampling them underfoot would have been overt acts of disrespect. Burning them in this situation wasn’t.

I have several points I’d like to make:
1. The Bibles were sent. Giving the Bibles to a missionary organization makes it appear as though the US military is merely using a proxy to force Christianity on the locals at gunpoint. Considering that this (or a variation on this involving Judaism) is already in the sermons of the Wahabis, it seems that we might do better for our nation, our Muslim allies, and our faith to not play directly into their hands. Better that no soldier, sailor, airmen, or Marine breathes a word of the Gospel while deployed than that Afghan Muslims decide that Christians are forcibly converting them. Any Christian who thinks that Americans in Afghanistan should be spreading the Gospel should go to Afghanistan and spread it themselves. Those of us in the military have other (though not higher) sworn loyalties, and I’m not going to sacrifice the lives of my friends (particularly my non-Christian friends) for the sake of (probably ineffectual) theological showboating. Distributing Bibles and tracts is, I think, the lazy man’s method of evangelism anyway.
2. Given that there was such a large store of Bibles which had to be disposed of, I think that burning them is the most respectful way of disposing of them — leaving nothing left to be disrespected. That is why we burn flags rather than throwing them in the trash.
3. Many regulations prohibiting things Muslims would find offensive are based on fundamentalist Christian/uneducated American conceptions of what is offensive to a religious person. Most Muslim countries are shame-based, not guilt-based, so your average, say, Iraqi Muslim sees nothing wrong in spending his day watching pornography — as long as he doesn’t get caught by someone who might disapprove. Like Derek said, things that won’t make a Muslim look twice (an infidel looking at pornography, drinking himself into a stupor, or reading the Bible) cause a fundamentalist Christian to go into a moral panic because he, personally, is offended by anyone doing these things, whether or not they are of his faith. (Witness the priority many American Christians place on banning gay marriage over spreading the Gospel.)
4. While I do not believe that the American presence in Afghanistan is unjust, I do believe that we are in someone else’s country and, thus, some deference is due to their native cultures and beliefs. Here’s the key — no one will die because those Bibles were burned. But if the Qur’an is burned, someone will die. There are enough Muslims in the world who are absolute savages (which is not to say all or even most Muslims) that any disrespect towards Islam, real or perceived, is guaranteed to be met with violence. So, yes, we defer a little more to Islam (and, more specifically, to the most fanatical of its adherents) than to Christianity for the same reason that we defer a little more to a crazed gunman than an average businessman: self-preservation. Most Westerners need the Gospel as desperately as do most Afghans, so sacrificing them for the Gospel is hardly a moral victory.
I say let the servicemen die for freedom, let the missionaries die for God, and let neither die because Afghan Muslims couldn’t tell the difference.

It sounds to me like more then one mistake was made. A church should
not have sent those Bibles through or to the military. The military
should have refused to ship or recieve the Bibles. Insted of burning
them, offer them to libraries, schools, etc. as sort of a text book
of a different religion? I have a son on duty in Pakistan who was also in both of the Iraqi wars. From what he has told me the US media
does a poor job of telling the whole story. From what a rich uncle who was in politics told me, so many deals are made in party and between parties behind closed doors, some elections are decided before
being voted on. Last but not least in Iraqi General Georges Sada’s
book Saddam’s Secrets were he tells of plans to destroy Israel, hide
WMDs and control the Arab world, he states how un-informed the American people are in what’s really going on in gov’ts around the world. Both my son and General Sada are fundamental Christians.

Apparantly, fast forward to September 11, 2010 and enter Pastor Jones and you have the same argument, but in a different way: Don’t burn the Koran, so that our troops will not be in Danger…OK, I get it now: Burn Bibles = Troop Salvation; Do not Burn Korans = Troop salvation! One sided religeous tolerance, and of course we are to take the high road. What hypocracy! Christians are much safer to deal with than those who belong to “the Religion of Peace”. Perhaps if we were less concerned about empire building and war making, then we would not have to worry about our troops dying, not to protect our own freedoms and Constitution, but others, who have no interest, or investment in our own sovereignty and freedoms.

Apparantly, fast forward to September 11, 2010 and enter Pastor Jones and you have the same argument, but in a different way: Don’t burn the Koran, so that our troops will not be in Danger…OK, I get it now: Burn Bibles = Troop Salvation; Do not Burn Korans = Troop salvation! One sided religeous tolerance, and of course we are to take the high road. What hypocracy! Christians are much safer to deal with than those who belong to “the Religion of Peace”. Perhaps if we were less concerned about empire building and war making, then we would not have to worry about our troops dying, not to protect our own freedoms and Constitution, but others, who have no interest, or investment in our own sovereignty and freedoms.