The Baptists, The Sufis, and the “Two Blocks from Ground Zero Community Center”
First Baptist Church in America
They came to this country searching for religious freedom. Those of similar but not identical faith considered them to be a threat to the “pure faith”.
It wasn’t long before they were told that their type of religion would not be tolerated, even outlawed in some cases.
They were maligned and denied the right to build their houses of worship. Freedom of worship apparently only meant freedom to worship as some other people or government dictated.
Of course this was not freedom of religion at all, but only the freedom to practice my religion as long as I can use political force to impose it upon others. In other words and in concept — a state religion.
Early Christianity in the America
From these people, led by one Roger Williams, came a revolutionary idea — the idea that the governments, local or otherwise, could not use their powers to establish or enforce any religious teachings.
His own experience included official banishment from colonial Massachusetts in October 1635 when he was tried by the General Court and convicted of sedition and heresy. The Court declared that he was spreading “diverse, new, and dangerous opinions.”
Williams, at first a Massachusetts Puritan, had become a Separatist, giving up on his effort to reform or “purify” the Church of England, the state religion of colonial Massachusets. Unfortunately, there was no legal sanction for someone who had left the state church, but continued to live according to the principles of his faith.
In addition he asserted that the civil magistrates may not punish any sort of “breach” … such as idolatry, Sabbath-breaking, false worship, and blasphemy, and that every individual should be free to follow his own convictions in religious matters.
Right from the beginning, he sounded three principles which were central to his subsequent career: Separatism, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Wikipedia on Roger Williams.
This means that credit for the twin concepts of separation of church and state and freedom of religion goes in part to Roger Williams and a group of persecuted worshipers which became known as Baptists.
Others had articulated the concepts, but it was Williams’ colonial Rhode Island (Providence Settlement) which would become a haven for those “distressed of conscience,” and it soon attracted quite a collection of dissenters and independent thinkers.
A Modern Counterpart
The Sufi Muslims came to this country believing that their rights to purchase land and build businesses or worship centers, and otherwise practice their religion and culture would not be questioned. They came expecting a society of religious diversity, like that guaranteed by the US Constitution.
They knew well the efforts of the extremists seeking to deter any non-radical form of Islam as was demonstrated recently in Pakistan when terrorists bombed a Sufi shrine while killing 40 worshipers, and wounding another 122.
The targeted shrine is that of Data Ganj Bakhsh Hajveri, who lived hundreds of years ago and traveled throughout the region spreading a message of peace and love. He eventually settled in the Lahore area, and his shrine is the most revered and most popular of Sufi shrines in the nation.
Fox News Online, July 1, 2010
Any informed Sufi Muslim would know that this moderate and willingly co-existent expression would not be tolerated in much of the Muslim world, especially those countries overseen by fundamentalist clerics. In that respect they were not all that different from our country’s first immigrants.
What these Muslim immigrants could not have anticipated was the tragedy of 9/11 with its anti-Muslim backlash. They could not have known that the very people who would happily murder them would fly planes into the Twin Towers slaughtering Christian and Jew and Muslim alike.
And they could not have known that so called Christian Americans would equate them with the murderers of Al Queada.
So as we watch nightly reports of angry Americans with their signs and noisy protests near Ground Zero, I wonder.
I wonder how many of them know they are attempting to persecute an already persecuted people?
I wonder how many of these sign carriers are Christians. Maybe Baptists?
Just to let you know, I’m not religious at all..in fact I’m an atheist but I still think it is insensitive to the families of the victims of 9/11 for muslims to build a mosque mere blocks away from where muslims (yes, they were extremists who don’t necessarily represent the views of all muslims) flew planes into the World Trade Center killing thousands of innocent civilians. If I had lost family or friends on that day I would view it as muslims thumbing their nose at my pain or spitting on my dead loved ones..basically telling me that they don’t care that I and others had lost people we cared about because they want what they want..and they don’t care whose feelings the hurt getting it. Of course I was fortunate..I didn’t lose anyone I knew on that day but I think a little consideration for how those who did feel might be in order..it would harm those who want this mosque built not in the slightest to show a little compassion for the 9/11 families to simply build their mosque somewhere else. Surely New York City is big enough that they can show a little compassion and have their mosque too..albeit at a different location. For them to put this mosque there would be no different as if a Japanese cultural center was built within stones throw of the Arizona Memorial where Americans lost their lives during the sneak attack on December 7, 1941. Of course no one would suggest such a thing because they are at least sensitive enough to respect the feelings of people who might still remember that day and for whom something like that built so close might open up old wounds reviving the horror of that day so long ago. I’m certainly not for the persecution of anyone for what they believe but not putting that mosque so close to ground zero is only persecution in the mind of the most unstable of individuals.
Just to let you know, I’m not religious at all..in fact I’m an atheist but I still think it is insensitive to the families of the victims of 9/11 for muslims to build a mosque mere blocks away from where muslims (yes, they were extremists who don’t necessarily represent the views of all muslims) flew planes into the World Trade Center killing thousands of innocent civilians. If I had lost family or friends on that day I would view it as muslims thumbing their nose at my pain or spitting on my dead loved ones..basically telling me that they don’t care that I and others had lost people we cared about because they want what they want..and they don’t care whose feelings the hurt getting it. Of course I was fortunate..I didn’t lose anyone I knew on that day but I think a little consideration for how those who did feel might be in order..it would harm those who want this mosque built not in the slightest to show a little compassion for the 9/11 families to simply build their mosque somewhere else. Surely New York City is big enough that they can show a little compassion and have their mosque too..albeit at a different location. For them to put this mosque there would be no different as if a Japanese cultural center was built within stones throw of the Arizona Memorial where Americans lost their lives during the sneak attack on December 7, 1941. Of course no one would suggest such a thing because they are at least sensitive enough to respect the feelings of people who might still remember that day and for whom something like that built so close might open up old wounds reviving the horror of that day so long ago. I’m certainly not for the persecution of anyone for what they believe but not putting that mosque so close to ground zero is only persecution in the mind of the most unstable of individuals.