Earlier this month, as we approached the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, much of the national conversation focused the threat of Florida preacher Terry Jones’ threat to burn copies of the Quran. His announced intent created a firestorm of backlash from secular and religious leaders around the world, imploring him to not carry out his threat. Ultimately he announced that he had changed his mind and has since promised that he will never burn a Quran.
Paul Raushenbush, writing on Huffington Post, asks us to consider what the episode tells us about the state of free speech in the United States and the openness of the American public to nuanced conversation about religion and religious freedom.
“The first piece of good news is that there was not one person of any substance who supported Jones’ effort — not one. From the range of political affiliations to every religious community, even the atheists — nobody supported this guy. In this fractured American political environment, we had a national consensus that there were limits to offensive behavior and Islam-baiting. We decided that burning books of any kind, and especially a holy book, was an un-American activity. And with one voice we condemned it.
[…]We must not turn the page on this episode without underlining, for ourselves and for the world, that this proposed act was universally condemned by the American public. If we fail to shout that from the mountain tops, then we are missing an important opportunity to clarify the nature of America to people around the world, especially Muslims, as well missing a chance to affirm something good that we accomplished together as one nation.
The second piece of good news coming out of Jones’ debacle is that it tested our commitment to freedom of speech — and we passed. While it is frustrating and dangerous, freedom of speech is a constitutional right in America. I never heard anyone saying that Jones couldn’t burn a Quran, just that he shouldn’t. He was not jailed for what he was proposing, even though expediency might have supported such an action. It is in moments of heightened anxiety that a society is most likely to think that it can meddle with basic rights in the name of security. But it is exactly during those moments when we must be most vigilant.”
More here.
What about you? What lessons can we learn in the Episcopal Church and around the world as we reflect back on the way the media handled the story, the way the world reacted and the way such a relatively simple threat exposed tensions between American rights of Freedom of Speech and the sensibilities of other cultures and religions?