{"id":67,"date":"2010-09-10T11:02:46","date_gmt":"2010-09-10T11:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html"},"modified":"2010-09-10T11:02:46","modified_gmt":"2010-09-10T11:02:46","slug":"terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html","title":{"rendered":"Terry Jones and the 9\/11 Mosque of Doom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Temple<\/span>It went down this way. Rev. Terry Jones heard from the Lord that all those excellent reasons for burning a Koran should be waived if and only if Cordoba House (aka Park51, aka the Mosque of Doom) is moved a few blocks uptown, lest the practice of Islam (“from the Devil,” in the theology of Jones’ International House of Spiritual Dovebars) pollute the Holy of Holies at Ground Zero and bring down His Wrath. Something along those lines. Bring on Harrison Ford.<\/p>\n

The key point here is that the proposed Islamic Center has become the all-purpose wedge for legitimating Islamophobia in America today. Everybody down to Sarah Palin disapproves of burning Korans, but gosh, you might trump Donald Trump himself if you drag Ground Zero into it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, even the most benign expressions of religious inclusivity are becoming occasions for the digital outpouring of anti-Muslim bile. A couple of days ago, the Hartford City Council was inundated when it resolved<\/a> to diversify its pre-meeting prayers with an Islamic invocation now and then. Given how little interest the Hartford City Council generates these days, I’ve got to believe that most of the angry emails came from non-Hartford residents. But these days, it’s hard to know. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It went down this way. Rev. Terry Jones heard from the Lord that all those excellent reasons for burning a Koran should be waived if and only if Cordoba House (aka Park51, aka the Mosque of Doom) is moved a few blocks uptown, lest the practice of Islam (“from the Devil,” in the theology of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nTerry Jones and the 9\/11 Mosque of Doom - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Terry Jones and the 9\/11 Mosque of Doom - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It went down this way. Rev. Terry Jones heard from the Lord that all those excellent reasons for burning a Koran should be waived if and only if Cordoba House (aka Park51, aka the Mosque of Doom) is moved a few blocks uptown, lest the practice of Islam (“from the Devil,” in the theology of…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-10T11:02:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/files\/import\/Temple%20of%20Doom.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Terry Jones and the 9\/11 Mosque of Doom - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Terry Jones and the 9\/11 Mosque of Doom - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","og_description":"It went down this way. Rev. Terry Jones heard from the Lord that all those excellent reasons for burning a Koran should be waived if and only if Cordoba House (aka Park51, aka the Mosque of Doom) is moved a few blocks uptown, lest the practice of Islam (“from the Devil,” in the theology of…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html","og_site_name":"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","article_published_time":"2010-09-10T11:02:46+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/files\/import\/Temple%20of%20Doom.jpg"}],"author":"Mark Silk","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html","name":"Terry Jones and the 9\/11 Mosque of Doom - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/files\/import\/Temple%20of%20Doom.jpg","datePublished":"2010-09-10T11:02:46+00:00","dateModified":"2010-09-10T11:02:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/927f8b0a579506efe527e8e0967f519d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/files\/import\/Temple%20of%20Doom.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/files\/import\/Temple%20of%20Doom.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/09\/terry-jones-and-the-911-mosque-of-doom.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Terry Jones and the 9\/11 Mosque of Doom"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/","name":"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","description":"Beliefnet Voices","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/927f8b0a579506efe527e8e0967f519d","name":"Mark Silk","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c82\/c82eec82562775fad85f4a47e1a5fc4ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c82\/c82eec82562775fad85f4a47e1a5fc4ax96.jpg","caption":"Mark Silk"},"description":"Mark Silk graduated from Harvard College in 1972 and earned his Ph.D. in medieval history from Harvard University in 1982. After teaching at Harvard in the Department of History and Literature for three years, he became editor of the Boston Review. In 1987 he joined the staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he worked variously as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist. In 1996 he became the founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and in 1998 founding editor of Religion in the News, a magazine published by the Center that examines how the news media handle religious subject matter. In 2005, he was named director of the Trinity College Program on Public Values, comprising both the Greenberg Center and a new Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture directed by Barry Kosmin. In 2007, he became Professor of Religion in Public Life at the College. Professor Silk is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America. He is co-editor of Religion by Region, an eight-volume series on religion and public life in the United States, and co-author of The American Establishment, Making Capitalism Work, and One Nation Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics. In 2007 he inaugurated Spiritual Politics, a blog on religion and American political culture.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/author\/msilk"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}