“Burn, baby, burn.” One might expect these words to come from a comedian as much as an arsonist. If you put the name “Terry Jones” into Google you will find a comedian. That is Terence Graham Parry Jones of Monty Python fame. These days there is another Terry Jones, a “Rev.ed” up one to boot. Rev. Terry Jones is the previously and foreseeably future little-known pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center on the outskirts of Gainesville, Florida. For a congregation estimated at about 50, their outreach may take a millennium or more, but they do have an inflammatory website, which promotes the “Right” (in all the irony this words entails) Rev. Jones’ book with the rather unoriginal title of “Islam is of the Devil,” which is for sale, as is a $20 t-shirt to advertise hatred of Islam. For an individual who has no clue about Islam, apart from his own rabid intolerance, the devil is certainly not in the details. His moment of fame is about to eclipse, but his motive is so shameful it deserves all the condemnation it can get, the kind in which the pen is mightier than the bonfire.

Let’s start with the desire to burn. One name should suffice to call out the hypocrisy of Mr. Jones. That name is John Wycliffe, the 14th century Christian cleric whose name inspired the Wycliffe Bible Translators, one of the most active Protestant organizations translating the Bible into other languages. Wycliffe dared to translate the Latin Vulgate into English, so earning the ire of the Catholic Pope that he was excommunicated. Some 44 years after Wycliffe died of a stroke, the “Church” had his bones dug up and burned, along with all his writings. I suspect that Jones prefers the King James Version of the Bible, although I do not know if he is aware that this “authorized” version was greatly influenced by Wycliffe. Continue reading Burning books, burning bodies, burning bridges →