Christians, Mosques, Ground Zero, Oh My!

I am a Christian, an American, and a political conservative. Because of this identity, I believe the group that wishes to build a Muslim center near Ground Zero has every right to do so. Those Christians who are political conservatives and are objecting to the mosque are failing to apply basic values to this issue. What I heard this morning on a local talk radio station was appalling. A host was calling people “stupid” and “dummies” for not objecting to the mosque. He couldn’t understand how any American would defend the building of the mosque, or religious center, near Ground Zero. Here’s why I do not oppose, and why I do defend, an Islamic group’s decision to construct a center near the site of the World Trade Center.

As I have already stated, I am a Christian. More specifically, I am a Baptist. Therefore, I believe in religious liberty. In this country, we should always protect religious rights – no matter the religion. Our Founders believed such. And Baptists at the time were the biggest supporters of religious liberty. Our Constitution and other founding documents protect our rights. Most importantly, these rights are protected for each individual, whether in the majority or minority. In this country, we don’t believe that the majority should be able to suppress the rights of others. We believe in majority rule with minority rights. No matter what the majority believes, certain rights of the individual will always be protected. One of those rights is free exercise of religion. If we allow society to restrict one group from worshiping where they wish, what stops the government from restricting others? Instead of protesting the building on an Islamic center near Ground Zero, we should be celebrating the ability of our country to protect and allow for religious freedom. As a Christian, I should cherish the idea that in America, we have the freedom to build multiple places of worship.

As a conservative, I believe in limited government. There are certain powers that the government should not have, especially in relation to our property rights. If a group owns a piece of land and they want to construct something legal on that land, the group should be allowed to do so. Conservatives talk about how the government seems too powerful today, reaching into our lives and telling us what to eat, what to drive, what kind of health insurance we should have, how much of our paycheck we need to fork over, etc. Yet, here is a case where these same conservatives think the government should tell a group of people what they should or shouldn’t do with their land. As a political conservative, I should champion the ability of a group to use private land for legal purposes, rejecting calls for the government to intervene.

Certainly, there are Muslims who think that building a mosque or religious center near Ground Zero is a bad PR move, and I may agree with that. But it also might be a bad PR move to build a mega-church in the middle of a neighborhood, or go door-to-door evangelizing during dinner time, or tell people Jesus is the Way, but because of religious liberty, we allow these practices. And I am thankful for that. If we could use Bill and Ted’s phone booth to go back in time, we should go ask Balthasar Hubmaier, as he is being burned at the stake for practicing believer’s baptism, if we should allow for minority faiths, (even faiths seen by some as threatening to society, as Hubmaier’s Anabaptists were), to construct a place of worship on private land in a country that claims to defend religious liberty.