So, is that what it takes to become a celebrity these days? Threaten to burn someone else’s Bible, and declare their religion to be satanic, and you are instantly the center of the news?

 

I wonder who is the bigger fool. Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who is an embarrassment to loving Christians everywhere with his original plans to burn Korans at his Church on September 11th and who is the author of “Islam is of the Devil,” or we the public who gulp down his story as if it’s of interest.

 

 

 

There are times when I’m embarrassed to work in media. How did

an attention-seeking nonentity with barely enough Church followers
to fill a phone

booth become an international personality and provoke a global
furor? And who elevated this silly story to global news prominence?

 

 

Well, it has to do with just how inane the media has become. Jones

is filler for a 24-hour news cycle which is all scandal all the
time. And if you

can’t find a scandal, invent one. There is nothing novel about the
existence of religious bigots and it’s certainly not newsworthy. But allow me
to teach Pastor Jones a lesson from Jesus’ famous pronouncement in

Matthew 7:16, “By their fruits you shall know them.”

 

The holiness or devilishness of any religion comes down not to its
articles of faith

but to the deeds of its practitioners. The crusaders who slaughtered
untold numbers of Jews in Europe as they marched to meet the Islamic infidel in
the Holy Land were of the devil, even if Christianity, of course, is not.
Likewise, the Spanish Inquisitioners who tortured non-believers and burned them
at the stake were satanic, even as their faith, Catholicism, remains holy.

 

In that sense the whole debate as to whether President Obama is a
Muslim is ridiculous. Yes, he isn’t, and has said time and again that he is a
Christian. But what if he were a Muslim? I couldn’t care less. My problem with
Obama is not his faith or lack there of but his policies. If Obama were an
Islamic president of the United States who berated instead of coddled Arab
dictators, like King Abdullahof Saudi Arabia, he would have my vote. If he were
a practicing Muslim who promoted democracy across the Middle East, rather than
Kissingerian real politik, I would endorse him. If he were a devout Muslim
first magistrate of the United States who regularly spoke out against the
abuses of women in the Islamic world and gave a prime time address condemning
Iran’s plans to stone a woman to death, I would deeply respect him. If he were
a Muslim who prayed in the Oval Office five times a day and fasted all of
Ramadan and then lectured Hamas and Hezbollah to stop putting all their money into
rockets against Israel and instead into Universities for their people, he would
inspire me.

 

The problem with President Obama is that he does none of these
things, rarely holding the Islamic world accountable for its absence of
freedoms, refusing to personally condemn Iran for its plan to stone a woman to
death, and putting the pressure on Netanyahu once again to freeze settlements
rather than place the blame for the failure of progress squarely on the real
culprits: the terrorist organizations of Hamas and Hezbollah, both Iranian
proxies.

 

 

 

I have devout Muslim friends who love Israel and wish Arab countries
emulated its democratic institutions, just courts, and freedom of worship and
press. Likewise, I have G-d fearing Islamic friends who love America, would
fight and die to protect her, and believe America is the light in an increasingly
dark world. I would support anyone like this for President over, say, Jimmy
Carter, a devout and self-declared evangelical Christian, who goes against the
stalwart evangelical Christian support for Israel and has the chutzpa to call
Israel, a thriving democracy, an apartheid state. I would take a competent
Muslim President who believes in lowering the burden of taxation, controlling
runaway spending, and vastly reducing the appalling Federal deficit over a
President like Carter who ran the country into the ground.

 

As a Jew I am trained to judge someone by their actions not their
beliefs. I will

Choose an atheist president, who loves and respects all of humanity
and would put an end to the genocide in Sudan any day over a religious
president who believes that we Americans have no such responsibilities to
people beyond our border.

 

 

If an American president believed in elves and the Easter bunny but
fought Taliban misogynists who pour acid on women who attend University, I
would follow him.

 

 

 

And if an American president spoke Klingon in his private moments
and worshipped Capt.James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise as a divinity, but
set up an alternative to the United Nations, to be known as the United
Democratic Nations, open only to governments that were of the people and by the
people, I would support him, too.

 

In short, I could not care less what a person believes but in what
they do.

 

 

 

Therefore, I will reject any pastor who claims to be religious but
is a narrow bigot. I love my Christian brothers and sisters, but not those who
deny the essential Biblical truth that every human being – Jew, Christian,
Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, and atheist – is equally G-d’s child and
that we have a responsibility to encourage people of faith rather than condemn
their religion.

 

 

I trust that my evangelical Christian brothers and sisters, who love
freedom and

Are disproportionately represented in the United States military,
fighting and dying for democracy in Islamic counties, will identify Pastor
Jones as the fruit Jesus was speaking of and reject him.