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Building mosque can be a redemptive act
President Obama, after saying that building a mosque at Ground Zero fit our "commitment to religious freedom," backtracked, saying he wasn't commenting on the 'wisdom' of building it so close to 'hallowed ground.'
A Fox News poll showed that while 61 percent of Americans believe that Cordoba House has a constitutional right to build near Ground Zero, 64 percent believe it is not appropriate to do so.
Does Obama's hedging show a lack of ethical convictions? Does Hamas' endorsement change the debate? What is behind public opposition to the site? Can you believe in religious freedom but not believe the mosque is appropriate?
Reading that there would be a provocative advertisement on New York City buses opposing the building of a "Mosque at Ground Zero" did it for me--made me come out of vacation stupor to add my comments to the growing gigabytes about Park 51, the proposed Muslim Community Center at Ground Zero. The ad features the image of a mosque and a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. The ad is catalytic because its regression stands in such bleak contrast to another bus incident: Rosa Park's courageous act of taking a seat at the front of a bus, and in so doing, advancing the forces of change for justice. What began as a small local issue, Park 51 has sparked an international conversation about religious tolerance and how our country will relate to Muslim Americans who love America as much as any of us.
My own grandfather was part of this story too. A Quaker, he led the founding of the first and only school for African-Americans in Pender County North Carolina in the 1920s. This good deed precipitated nightly visits from the Ku Klux Klan--his good Presbyterian and Methodist neighbors--robed, on horseback with torches burning to harass him. If a public opinion poll had been taken assessing support for the school, I'm sure it would have had few supporters--"not in our neighborhood" they would have said. And yet, most would agree today that his was a redemptive act--the right thing to do to help turn the tide of bigotry, discrimination and hatred.
The proposed Park 51 Community Center has tapped into similar and sinister forces of resistance, pent up since 9/11, festering just below the surface, a wound not healed. With it comes a much needed national conversation about who we are as a people. Are we going to be a nation that embodies the constitutionally protected values of religious freedom and pluralism or will freedom be allowed only when and how a majority tolerates it?
As a Christian leader who lived in NYC through 9/11, I have often heard people ask in frustration: Where are the Muslim leaders? Why don't they speak out against terrorism? Ironically, my answer has often been to talk about the Muslim leaders with whom we partner at Auburn Seminary, including Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan, who have taken a leading role to envision and create Park 51. They were faithful first responders to the 9/11 crisis by becoming public leaders who represent an inclusive, tolerant and loving Islam. They live out the promise of the verse (49:13) in the Koran, God "made you into nations and tribes that you may know one another." They have devoted their lives, as Muslims, to tolerance, understanding and good relationships among peoples of different faith communities. We at Auburn Seminary have valued their partnership and friendship. And our experience with such leaders makes opposition to their current efforts to build their community center deeply troubling. Imputing the guilt and stain of terrorism to this effort is both repugnant and un-American.
In fact, the creation of Park 51 can be a redemptive act--an effort by Muslims to be part of binding up the rupture of 9/11. More than a stone monument in honor of those who died, this initiative, perfectly located near Ground Zero, can be a living memorial for human beings from many faith traditions who gather to do the hard work of deep engagement, appreciating difference, finding common ground and acting upon shared goals. We can find redemption when Americans of different faiths rise up to support the effort. It will be efforts like this in the end that will be the only way to safeguard our future against the hatred that fueled the 9/11 attacks. Not a "war on terror," but a struggle for reconciliation and redemption, a cause that Muslims and Christians, indeed peoples of every faith share.
And, about that bus. Rosa Parks didn't refuse to give up her seat so that others could be forced to the back of the bus, but so that all of us could sit together--not as us/them but as We, the people, journeying together to form the more perfect union that the framers of the Constitution set out to found.
By
Katharine Henderson
|
August 17, 2010; 11:01 AM ET
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Posted by: Secular | August 20, 2010 5:00 PM
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According to the Imam, the proposed mosque at ground zero will be available for other religions to worship provided they comply with the muslim requirements. This does not sound to me like freedom for all faiths to worship.
Posted by: mrmrsg | August 19, 2010 11:13 PM
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People this is astounding that comparisons are being made of living conditions for muslims in the present day US and that of african americans until the 1960s. This is really ridiculous and grotesque. Most of these muslims who are protesting came over here by buying an economy calss ticket in one of the international airlines. If they came here with education have not seen a single day of discrimination or harassment. They probably did few more years of graduate studies and have found a fairly cushy job. Those who have come without much education have either gone into doing some low level jobs and either through the help of the other family members or public largess have gone into some small business or the other and leading by and large a cushy life. So please do not compare. The discrimination suffered by them is no more than any other immigrant group. that is not to say the discrimination ought to be visited upon anyone. But yet the same time it is not singling in nature. If you want to make it a cause celiber then do it on behalf of all the immigrant groups. Personally, though I am an immigrant myself there are lot more problems needing our attention than this.