Pastor's Got a Gun

So I am driving home from my morning get-the-kids-to-school shuffle, and I hear a news blurb on the radio that Florida “pastor” Terry Jones was at it again, trying to burn a large quantity of copies of the Koran. Apparently he was caught red-handed while driving his pickup truck hauling 2,988 Korans, one for every 9-11 victim, doused in kerosene. After my mind processed…Pastor? Kerosene? Korans?, a different kind of question entered it. Was he speeding with the Koran-packed pickup? Were his tags expired? How did this convenient arrest occur? My curiosity led me to a Google search, of course. As it turns out, this is the same “pastor” who tried this public scheme before and backed down after the pleas of several world leaders. So he has obviously been counseled as to the damaging effect that his actions would have on true believers. On a more humorous note, I misheard the reporter on this video. When she said that his “associate pastor’s son” was shooting the video, I thought she said he was a “sociopath’s son.” But that’s beside my point. Terry Jones actually tried to get a permit to burn the Koran at a park in Mulberry. Of course, he was denied, and now they were on to him. In fact, Jones told the Sheriff’s Department that he was going to do it anyway. So he had been warned of his impending arrest if he followed his plans. I guess Jones was jonesing to make the news again, so he decided to make it interesting. He decided to get to the business of smothering Koran copies in kerosene in the McDonald’s parking lot. At this point, the manager of McDonald's tells him to leave, and Jones hits the road hauling a potential bomb waiting for the right traffic violation. That’s when he was pulled over. The Sherriff’s Department was also concerned about what would go down after the arrest, because Jones and his associate pastor were both carrying guns and they didn’t know what to expect from Jones's congregation. Besides looking for his annual 15 minutes of fame, Jones was supposedly making a statement. His thwarted visual production of burning copies of the Koran is his very unwise way of claiming that the faith of the 9-11 terrorists took the physical lives of innocent people. (The irony is that’s potentially what he could have done driving around with Kerosene-doused books.) And the loss of these lives is indeed senseless and tragic. But maybe a pastor could watch over his sheep better by speaking out against the writings of people in his own faith that are unclear or completely false regarding the path to eternal life with the true God. There are plenty of books with the Christian label that are damning enough on their own. There are so many things wrong with this story. But it does make me think that if we really want to protect people from reading dangerous books, the first place we need to look is in the Christian bookstore. But please, no fires.