Pastor Terry Jones sure seems like an unlikely fellow to become America's most inconvenient man. A grizzled 58-year-old who packs a .40-caliber pistol on his hip, Jones heads a small congregation -- maybe 50 members in all -- on a pine-studded tract of land in Gainesville, Fla. The Dove World Outreach Center, as the church is known, is in fact the kind of local, spirit-filled, Pentecostal-style church that is found in cities and rural areas across America, and have been since the earliest days of the Republic.
Think Robert Duvall in "The Apostle," the 1997 Oscar-nominated film about the downfall and redemption of a Texas minister.
But Terry Jones is preaching a much different message than the pastor in "The Apostle," and at a different moment in time. And that is why Jones' mission to burn copies of the Koran to mark the 9/11 anniversary this Saturday has managed to dominate the news -- and global politics -- even in a wildfire media cycle already ablaze with suspicions (false) that President Obama is a Muslim and that jihadis are building a victory mosque at ground zero (also a myth).On Thursday, Jones surprised the media with news that he was canceling the Koran-burning event. He said he had reached an agreement with Islamic officials in New York City to move the planned Islamic center from a site near ground zero, implying that this concession had softened him and had changed his mind about the need to burn Korans.
But Islamic officials immediately said they had reached no such agreement. Within hours after that Thursday, Jones stood outside his church and told reporters he had been "lied to" and said he was putting any decision on Koran burning "on hold."
Jones believes that Islam is a "false religion" that is "of the devil" and therefore must be defeated. But Islam, he believes, is also threatening to take over in the United States. Hence his justification, reiterated earlier this week, for the Koran-burning: "We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam," Jones said. "We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats. It is time for America to return to being America."
Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, this week said the plans by the Dove World Outreach Center to burn up to 200 copies of the Koran could endanger U.S. troops in the country and Americans worldwide. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the proposed book burning "disrespectful and disgraceful" at an iftar dinner for Muslims ending their daily Ramadan fast. And Attorney General Eric Holder called Jones' plan "idiotic and dangerous."
Even Angelina Jolie weighed in -- surely a leading benchmark of media buzz. "I have hardly the words that somebody would do that to somebody's religious book," the 35-year-old actress told reporters in Islamabad after visiting refugees camps in flood-ravaged Pakistan. Jolie is a goodwill ambassador for the U.N.'s refugee agency.
An effigy of Jones -- wrapped in an American flag -- was burned in Afghanistan, and Muslims in Indonesia have rallied outside the U.S. embassy threatening violence if any Korans are burned.
A growing number of Christian leaders are also raising their voices as Jones seems determined to go ahead with his plan. "Please do not judge all Christians by the behavior of one extremist," the National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson said. And the Vatican's interreligious office on Wednesday denounced "Burn a Koran Day" as an "outrageous and grave" plan.
Yet even as efforts are made to minimize Jones' profile and limit the damage he could cause -- Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe called the Dove Center "a very tiny church" that does not represent "the true nature of Gainesville" -- the pastor and his flock are also very much a part of the American religious past, and present.
*) By David Gibson Politics Daily
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