Burning the Qu'ran...what's the point? Here's one.

This issue reminds me of a terrible Chris Rock joke where he once said he could never beat his wife - but he certainly understood those who did. There is a dark wit hidden behind the revulsion there, of course. But likewise, there is something about burning a Qu'ran that while it is initially repulsive, but I can see where those who would do it - could do it.

Indeed, there is, if one would be really honest, something quite sinister behind Islam, jihad, the Qu'ran, and the anti-Western and anti-American messages of the "Islamic radicals". What people who are not sympathetic to the Qu'ran burners are not seeing - and perhaps don't want to see - is the reality that there is a war going on in the name of Islam. Sure, Islamic "radicals" have declared this war, but how many more times must we in the West be surprised again by the violent actions of a so-called Muslim "moderate"? As we have seen, Muslim moderates lack both voice and conviction in their denunciation of Islamically inspired violence against the West. But who is a radical and who is not isn't the point, though. The point is...when will we in the West get absolutely serious about the Qu'ran, Sharia Law, and the imams who weekly preach the fundamentals of what really is scarcely little more than a political manifesto of world conquest in theological drag?

To say that Islam - as it is being preached and taught - is encroaching upon American sensitivities is an understatement. For sure, the anniversary of 9/11 always reopens an old wound. The U.S. Cole. The Ground Zero mosque. The Fort Hood shooting. The Shoe Bomber. The New Jersey reconnaisance crew. This list has grown out of control. Even this most recent false alarm: why in the world would you tape a watch to a bottle of Pepto Bismol and tuck it in a piece of flight luggage separate from your original destination - if you were not up to something evil? Come on now, if we will be honest, the continual arrests of Islamic men - foreign and domestic - intent on doing harm to America is without precedent - and yet the people will not point to the obvious.

Indeed, even largely secular Europe is warning America. What has happened to us can happen to you sooner than you think, Uncle Sam, they are saying. Look at London, Amsterdam, or Paris. Controversy upon controversy over hijabs, burkas, Muhammad cartoons, airport screenings, and many other things all seem to have a point of commonality - Islam and its inability to cope with the West.

So what does the West do? Again and again, retreat from principle and TOLERATE. Most Americans have come to accept the flag-burnings and "Death to America" chants as a given. But even aloof France, an avowedly secular country, has gotten concerned. And with evidence from a smuggled video of a Parisian Muslim call to prayer on a busy Paris street, ordinary Parisiens are dismayed by what Islamists are doing to their secular city, block by block, burb by burb.

So, while these Qu'ran burning pastors may seem a little cuckoo, what they are doing, like canaries in the coal mine, is sounding the alarm. I hear it. Clanging loudly. I hear what they are saying. None of them hate Islam, per se, it seems, but they love Christian America so much that they cannot allow another day to pass without bearing witness, like the Watchmen on the Wall in Ezekiel 3, of an encroaching enemy.

The question isn't whether or not America will tolerate Islam and "be a good neighbor" but whether or not this country's men of God will join these "crazy" pastors and put up a spiritual and moral stand at the 50 yard line, or retreat, tolerate, and eventually put up a stand - by force of arms, perhaps - at our own goaline.

However, given the weakening of our leadership in Washington and our collectively diminished moral discernment, will we, like the Jerusalem priests and false prophets who scoffed at genuinely prophetic warnings of doom, also not heed the warnings before us because the men doing the shouting and Qu'ran burning are "crazy"? Could these men be right?

So, no, I wouldn't burn a Qu'ran, but I certainly understand those who would.

MARANATHA!!