Sep 9 Burn the Koran?-A non-story of a non-story of a non-story

If ever you wanted proof about the power of a story, take a closer look at the “Pastor Jones burning the Koran” saga playing out before us. This morning, President  Obama weighed in too “Please Pastor No.”  He was  only following General Petraeus and Secretary Clinton. Even Pat Robertson of the Evangelical Right, whose trademark is fire and brimstone,  sought to put out the fire. What a sensation. Will he or won’t he? And Pastor Jones is keeping us in suspense. ‘Someone has to stand up to evil,’ he defends.If you step back from the media scrum, and think about the asymmetry, you have to see it for its utter craziness. Not the crazy pastor. No-the crazy media and how they promote a silly local town story to blanket our national media reality.In one corner,  we have an unknown seemingly eccentric Pastor of a tiny anonymous Florida church of 50 members and in the other corner,  we have the Commander in Chief, his Secretary of State, and his General running the war in Afghanistan, and all are reduced to begging.Who really cares what this mini-church does? They can burn the Constitution or Huckleberry Finn for all we know or care. But somehow, someone has insisted we know and demanded that we care.  Someone wants this story to break loose from any connection to reality and float loose like the balloon boy so the world sees America as a Koran burning, Islam hating spectacle.But its a non story being added to a non story  being added to a non-story.President Obama is a Muslim, so say 20% of the huddled masses. Now 30% might think he is a lousy basketballer or terrible cook, but somehow his religion is supposed to matter to us more than his jump shot or his souffle. It’s a non story. Who cares? Most people just want to know- can he run the country?Then, take the Ground Zero Mosque that is not a Mosque and is not being built at Ground Zero;  another chapter in this sorry charade.  It’s a non story too and remained  that way for everyone who knew about it  until only very recently. Mayor Bloomberg and the President weighed in on that one too. Why are we being made to care about things that really don’t matter? Unless the Islamic Center can create  new jobs or control Wall Street.And now we have the mad, Koran burning pastor.  Maybe chat shows were running out of incendiary material, so now they can last another week on “Do you think our Muslim President should have gone to the Ground Zero Mosque to denounce Pastor Jones?” It all fits, doesn’t it? Just don’t mention jobs or  the economy.Americans are not good  Muslim or Jew or Christian haters in the main. In fact, Thomas Jefferson studied the Koran and taught himself Arabic from it.  He even edited his own version of the Bible. But no matter. A pastor from nowhere wants to burn a Koran. And we have to believe the world is going to end because of it.If one wanted to fan the flames of religious or political division, you feed the media these stories.  Show  Rev. Jones lighting the match, torching the holy book, and then show  riots in Tehrain, and the mob burning effigies and American flags. If they don’t do it on cue, use old footage.  Show the ugliest face of America you can possibly find, and show how much we are loathed because of it, and  then feign surprise and outrage. Then move to how much we have to defend our American honor and Glenn Beck values and vote accordingly in November. What a strategy? What a story?No doubt the pastor has been in the Florida sun too long  or felt he needed to increase his subscriptions, but unknown pastors from unknown churches have just as much right to be as crazy and provocative as any other fiery preacher.  Remember Rev Wright? America celebrates its tolerance of  its  own religious insanity, and other Reverends named Jones have done worse things.But if  someone is invested in keeping a certain storyline alive, has  a Clash of Civilizations view of the world, and sees votes in it, then they know they have to feed us every morsel of hate they can-You win elections like Carl Rove used to, by rallying your base through divide and conquer. Hatred and scorn fuel hatred and scorn.  This is no innocent story. But then, none of them are.Jesus stories were quite the opposite. He  said love your enemies,  do good to those who persecute you, if someone steals your shirt, offer your coat as well, if you are forced to march one mile, offer to walk three miles. You disarm the story of hatred and scorn by witnessing to its opposite-love and respect.  Somehow, Pastor Jones didn’t remember what Jesus said just before he was murdered. He didn’t scream “Someone has to stand up to this abomination.” He said something far more provocative “Father forgive.” Now that is a story all of us still haven’t come to grips with. Don’t burn the Koran-he says-burn the hatred, burn it and bury it. Let love rise in its place.Pastor Jones sounds more like another son of Thunder to go with  apostles James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who asked Jesus to bring the sky  down on the unbelieving towns of Samaria.  Now Jesus didn’t beg them to stop or calm down, or even go into anger therapy. He simply rebuked them. Told them that was not the Gospel. Perhaps someone  should do the same to Pastor Jones. He can do what he likes, but please don’t call it Christianity, please don’t call it defending against evil,  and please, for the sake of good healthy churches, don’t call yourself a church.And if he wakes up in time, he might realize he and his 50 members are  being used to make a statement on behalf of all 350 million Americans to a watching and waiting Muslim world, a statement that America is not saying at all.  A trivial and stupid act that should have  been ignored,  is being elevated to the scale of a national policy debate. A small, local, bizarre story  is being swept up into geopolitics.  It is nothing more than the local town news, where we read about a Sheriff’s daughter who came third in the  Smallville Rose of Tralee contest,” or  “Village church raffles Pastor’s pet hamster to buy new curtains.”  or ‘Crazy Pastor Jones at it again, after success of Koran fire, promises to burn “Catcher in the Rye”  next week-Bring your copy-Free hot dogs served in vestry hall after.”