“Can’t you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!”
Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy), retirado do filme “Inherit the Wind” de Stanley Kramer, 1960.
Patrick Corrigan, «The Toronto Star»
Não se trata da Evolução, mas o princípio será sempre o mesmo. Terry Jones é um Pastor da uma Igreja na Florida, a Dove World Outreach Center, que pretende queimar várias cópias do Corão no dia 11 de Setembro, algo que já foi condenado por Hillary Clinton, o General David Petraeus e o Secretário da Defesa americano Robert Gates.
Mas o Sr. Jones tem também um passado europeu, mais precisamente um passado na Alemanha, na cidade de Colónia onde dirigia uma Igreja, até ser sido expulso dessa mesma Igreja. Segundo a Der Spiegel, os membros da Igreja cansaram-se dos sermões e da exigência de “obediência cega”:
[T]he radical Islamophobes know very well that their deliberate provocation could trigger potentially violent protests and riots. But they have washed their hands of any responsibility. “Let’s just make one thing clear,” the wannabe Koran-burners write on their blog. “A small church, in a small town, down a back road, burning copies of its own books, on its own property, is not responsible for the violent actions anyone may take in retaliation to our protest.” […]
What is less well known is that the pastor led a charismatic evangelical church, the Christian Community of Cologne, in the western German city up until 2009. Last year, however, the members of the congregation kicked founder Jones out, because of his radicalism. One of the church’s current leaders, Stephan Baar, also told the German news agency DPA that there had been suspicions of financial irregularities in the church surrounding Jones.
A “climate of fear and control” had previously prevailed in the congregation, says one former member of the church who does not want to be named. Instead of free expression, “blind obedience” was demanded, he says.
Various witnesses gave SPIEGEL ONLINE consistent accounts of the Jones’ behavior. The pastor and his wife apparently regarded themselves as having been appointed by God, meaning opposition was a crime against the Lord. Terry and Sylvia Jones allegedly used these methods to ask for money in an increasingly insistent manner, as well as making members of the congregation carry out work. […]
Former church members are still undergoing therapy as a result of “spiritual abuse,” Schäfer said. According to Schäfer, Jones urged church members to beat their children with a rod and also taught “a distinctive demonology” and conducted brainwashing. […]
Cardow, «The Ottawa Citizen»