Sermon by Rev. Tom Lenhart of FCC: “Mosques in Our Community?”

September 17, 2010

Reprinted with permission from Rev. Thomas Lenhart of the First Congregational Church of Chappaqua. [Bracketed subheadings added]

Though I was on the Maine Coast for a few weeks this summer, I heard about the controversy over the proposed building of an Islamic Center two blocks from “ground zero,” the site of the World Trade Center destroyed by terrorists on September 11, 2001.

Everywhere I looked the media reported on the growing opposition to this project. Some of the families of those killed on 9-11 were opposed, as were, of course, various candidates for office and politicians, apparently hoping to build political capital with the issue.

On the other hand the press did note the strong support for the project from New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg and from President Obama. It is a highly charged issue and each of us will ultimately have to decide where we stand. But as I thought about it, it seemed to me that our faith offers some relevant insights that should be kept in mind as we think about the issue.

[Remembering 9/11]

Though that horrific day occurred almost 9 years ago to the day, the events of 9-11 have stayed with us because of the unspeakable evil reflected in those attacks. Nearly 3000 innocent men and women, among them husbands and wives, sons and daughters, and fireman, police officers and others who courageously responding to the disaster, died in the collapse of the towers. This tragedy remains vivid in our consciousness as a nation and especially in the minds of New Yorkers because of the immensity and immediacy of the tragedy. It touched so many here directly and indirectly and we recognized that we were not invulnerable. 

We can’t forget that the 19 terrorist known to be on the hijacked planes that day were Muslims – many of whom had invoked their faith in justification for their actions. That fact lingers and impacts the way many view Muslims generally.  What questions might we ask about this lower Manhattan project? If 2 blocks from ground zero is inappropriate, what about 4 or 8 blocks? Are people opposed to this Center because of the fear that terrorists will be there? If so, would any place in New York be better? Or are we concerned with what some of the Muslims at the Center will say or believe about our country or about 9-11? If so, aren’t there other groups whose beliefs about these subjects we don’t like or share? Ought they to be discouraged from locating in this portion of NYC? 

How is it that the Pentagon Chapel, dedicated to those who lost their lives at the Pentagon on 9-11, has Muslim prayer services weekly for the Muslims who work in the Pentagon? How does that square with the dedication of that Chapel? Is that too an affront to those who lost there lives that day?  Who are the people sponsoring the project? Why did they choose this particular location? Each of us, as with most debates over public policy, will have to sort out these and other thorny questions.

[Newt Gingrich’s assertions]

As I was reading the stories pro and con, one reported comment stuck with me. In opposing the project Newt Gingrich is reported to have said, “Nazi’s don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor.”[1] First of all I am not sure these are correct assertions. In the 80s the American Nazi Party was permitted to march through Skokie, Illinois outside Chicago, though the organizers ultimately chose not to march. What was significant in that situation was that Skokie at the time had a largely Jewish population and had one of the highest concentrations of holocaust survivors in the US.

What struck me about Gingrich’s words, however, was not whether he was factually correct but what I took to be his underlying point. Some of you will remember that the SATs used to have a section on analogies. Cat is to meow, as dog is to bark. The former Congressman was making an argument by analogy:  he implied that the Islamic Center near ground zero would be equally offensive as a Nazi sign near the Holocaust Museum. In essence Muslims as a group are offensive and dangerous, akin to the Nazi’s or those Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor. At least so far as I am aware no reports have linked the folks proposing this Center to the 9-11 terrorists.

[What Christianity shares with Islam]

I am not an Islamic scholar and hope to have some of our friends from the Upper Westchester Muslim Society come and talk this fall about their faith and answer our questions. They generously met this spring with the Confirmation Class and our high schoolers and were wonderful. But I do know about some things we share with Islam. Scholars can’t say how much of the story Don just read from Genesis, [Chapters 1-21], about Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Ishmael and Hagar is true and how much is myth, but whether literally true or not, it reflects an important biblical truth. At some point in the very distant past, a small group of people shed their belief in multiple gods and rejected the view of humans as lesser beings, used and manipulated by the gods. Instead these people grew to believe and trust in one God who loved all creation.

In the evocative language of the Bible, God made a covenant with these people through Abraham. In essence this loving God promised the chosen people that they would become as numerous as the stars and that God would always be with them. The passage we read today is also the masterful way that Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all believers in this same God, are linked to this covenant. From Abraham’s son Isaac came the Jews and the Christians and from his son Ishmael came the Muslims. And each group affirms that shared covenantal ancestry. Jews recognize that Christians and Muslims shared with them a common patriarch, Abraham. Christians see Jews and Muslims as heirs to God’s covenant with Abraham. And Muslims affirm this as well.

And so all these three faiths worship the same God and more importantly they affirm the goodness of creation.  Some followers of each faith have at times not adhered to this view. Christian Crusaders saw Muslims as infidels. Other Christians have seen Jews as evil, calling them “Christ killers” fueling horrific anti-Semitism. And to be sure today there are some who call themselves Muslim who do not see the other Abrahamic faiths as valid or accept the goodness of those who worship these other faiths.

[Being of the “wrong faith”]

During the troubles in Northern Ireland some Roman Catholics despised the Irish Protestants and vice versa. There were Protestant ministers who espoused and aided religious hatred and Catholic Priests who supported the IRA.  And in response these religious groups isolated themselves and sought to cleanse their communities of the other religion, closing churches and parishes because they were of the “wrong faith.”
Time proved that such segregation and isolation served no purpose. It didn’t reduce the hate, indeed, it may have increased it.  It was, of course, premised on the error of generalizing from the few to the many. When finally the vast majority of Catholics and Protestants, lead by the courageous mothers on both sides, called for the end of the hatred and mistrust, they knocked down the walls of separation and began to see that they shared much including important religious beliefs.

The loss felt by the families of those who died on 9-11 cannot ever be undone even by a tasteful monument or poignant symbols at ground zero. Yet, the ground there is, indeed, hallowed ground. As Lincoln said at Gettysburg talking about that place where so many were lost by the North and South, the focus must be on the unfinished business before us.

Shouldn’t the focus after 9-11 be on our unfinished business? Certainly that includes insuring our security, recognizing the truth that it will never be perfect. But even more shouldn’t we do all we can in small and large ways to break down the walls of mistrust, of ignorance and of hate that spawn terrorism?  Shouldn’t we avoid demonizing a whole group for the evil of a few? Relegating Islamic Centers to places that are out of sight and mind is probably not the way to bring about better relations, tolerance and perhaps finally brotherhood. It is very difficult to love one’s neighbors if they are strangers.

[The First Amendment “no establishment and free exercise” clauses]

There is much debate about the religious views of the founders of this country. Did they really believe they were founding a Christian nation? I personally find Jon Meachem’s approach to this question in American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation, compelling. But whatever the founders’ view on the ultimate place of Christianity, we have the First Amendment with its “no establishment” and “free exercise” clauses. It is a concrete statement about the practice of religion in this country.

Our forebears had experience with and fear of state sponsored religion. But they also fundamentally believed that religion was personal and the opportunity to practice it by anyone was as important as free speech and the pursuit of happiness. The free exercise clause recognized that religion comes in many forms and that it is critically important that different religions can flourish here. That Amendment implies that we learn from each faith; indeed, maybe we become better practitioners of our own faith by understanding the teachings of others. Like the quality of our discourse enhanced by freedom of speech, each faith too is enhanced when all can worship as they choose.

“Free exercise” is an interesting phrase. It leaves the decision about how, when and where to worship to the worshipper. To be sure a government could create by law an area banning houses of worship for legitimate land use reasons, but they would have to apply them equally to all houses of worship. The government’s reasons for the ban would have to be real, not a pretext for stopping a particular, disliked or disfavored church, temple or mosque. Like freedom of speech, the free exercise of religion applies especially to the hard cases, to a house of worship that we don’t like or to a faith we find distasteful or repugnant.

[Should the Center be built?]

Some have said, “of course, this Center can be built, if it passes all the land use reviews, but it shouldn’t be built. The proponents of this Islamic Center should be more sensitive.” Perhaps so. I for one hope that they have thought long and hard about where to build and that their decision is premised on the site being the best place for this faith community to worship.

I have no doubt that for some this Center in lower Manhattan would be a traumatic reminder of the horror of 9-11. I have sympathy for their pain, but I suspect that this would lessen over time. For those who oppose it because the Center is a symbol of a religion of hate, I have less sympathy. To be sure there are Muslims who hate us. But I simply don’t accept a generalization that imparts an evil mindset to the great bulk of Muslims, whether Sunni, Shi’a, or Sufi.

What would we be saying about how Americans view Islam if the Center were to be derailed in a cacophony of labels and innuendos?  To be sure there may be people involved in this project who hold views about America and 9-11 that are offensive. But such offensiveness is not a crime or usually disqualifying in our culture.  Maybe the Center will never be built. Real estate projects come and go. But let’s hope, if it’s not built it isn’t because as a society we have accepted the generalization that Islam is a religion of hate.

One final point. I decided to preach this sermon for a second reason. The situation in NYC is for most of us a somewhat distant issue of only generalized interest. But what you may not know is that The Upper Westchester Muslim Society has bought land in New Castle with the hope of building a Mosque here.  Many of you know members from the Society and have met them at our annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service. The Muslim Society has been a wonderfully supportive and stalwart member of the Interfaith Council here. In company with Temple Beth El, the Upper Westchester Muslim Society has offered this community thoughtful debate about the issues of the Middle East. We are richer and better for their presence in our community. Let us hope that they can navigate the land use issues before them, trusting that they will be applied to them as they would be to any faith community seeking to exercise their faith here. And let them not be seen as dangerous but as a gift to our community, fellow heirs to God’s covenant with Abraham and our neighbors. Amen.