Pirate's Cove

So says the Washington Post’s expert on religion, Susan Brooks Thistlwaite

Can I get an amen? What to preach about 9/11 this year

Some Christian pastors have emailed me that they are worried about what to preach this year on the Sunday that follows 9/11. One pastor wrote me that “people in the pews” are “really emotional right now” and that touching on the subject of 9/11, to say nothing of the controversy about the proposed Islamic Center in lower Manhattan near Ground Zero, he thought, is just “too hot to handle” from the pulpit. Others have expressed doubt they can do much to help bridge these emerging divides.

This is bad ministry. If the people in the pews are torn up emotionally about an issue, isn’t that exactly the issue the preacher needs to address? It is pastorally irresponsible to take the attitude, “Well, we really don’t want to get into that, do we?” Bridging emotional divides is difficult, but that is no excuse not to try.

This is religion from the left, bringing politics into the mix. And lest you think I am making it up about being lefty religion, Thistlewaite is a senior fellow at the Center For American Progress. It doesn’t get more far left than that. And then the political religious fervor gets ramped up

Some pastors, as well as rabbis and imams, are not ducking these controversial issues this weekend and are taking different approaches. A popular theme, and one that I have taken for a 9/11 preaching theme, is why Christians should not let fear dominate their lives. There is plenty of fear to go around, of course. In the face of fear mongering about Islam as a “terrorist religion,” a threatened Quran burning by the “Dove World Outreach Center” with their right wing pastor who calls Islam a “religion of the devil,” and demonstrations at the prospective Islamic Center site, there’s plenty of fear and anger.

Is it fear and fear mongering to yell that there is an iceberg in the way of the Titanic? Yes, we should not let fear dominate and rule our lives. Yet, it is not fear, but the cold hard facts of reality, that surrounds most who understand what Islam is about. Those who are not extremists are the actual radicals, as the do not practice the harshness that the Koran teaches.

I will say, though, that burning Korans is a Bad Idea. Yes, it will expose the Islamists who will get violent, but, it is not in keeping with the tenants of the Bible, nor is it Constitutionally protected, as they are not demonstrating “peaceably.” That said, yet again, a lefty misrepresents what is going regarding the “Islamic center”. For the majority, it is not fear, but an understanding that building the center, which will include a mosque (not too mention all the other issues), in the 9/11 debris field zone is a slap in the face of America.