I don’t know much about this “9-11 Christian Center” that’s not in this press release (or discernible from their website) . But let me just say that I think the idea is gross and reeks of PR-stunt exploitation. If that puts me on the same side as Keith Olbermann so be it. An excerpt from the press release:
PRESS RELEASE
Liveprayer’s Bill Keller Upset Press Endorses “victory mosque” but not his
Christian Center!
The leader of LivePrayer.com an internet ministry that has over 2.4 million
subscribers worldwide reading his Daily Devotional, responds to the Press
endorsement of the new Islamic ground zero “victory mosque,” yet condemns
his new 9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero
Website: www.911christiancenter.com
Video from Countdown with Keith Olbermann condemning “9-11 Christian Center
at Ground Zero:”
September 2, 2010 – St Petersburg, Fla. Bill Keller, leader of the world’s
largest interactive Christian website for 11 years, Liveprayer.com, has
harshly criticized the mainstream press endorsement of the “ground zero
victory mosque,” while condemning the opening of his new 9-11 Christian
Center at Ground Zero. Keller states, “The mainstream press has been
supportive of the memorial being built by Muslims to their greatest military
victory in the 1400 years of Islam, 9/11/2001, yet they are condemning our
new 9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero.”
Keller goes on, “When talking about the mosque, the press labeled anyone who
didn’t think it was in good taste as ‘Islamaphobic,’ as ‘haters,’ yet are
now calling me every derogatory name you can think of for opening a
Christian Center by ground zero to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Keller’s “9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero” has been not only been
featured on MSNBC, but far left media sites like Salon.com, The Huffington
Post, and the Daily Kos to name a few.
Keller’s 9-11 Christian Center will begin holding services this Sunday,
September 5th in the ballroom of the New York Marriott by ground zero
through the end of the year. They will move into their permanent facility
on January 1st.
Keller stated that he sees this as an incredible opportunity to take a stand
for Christ within a block of the hallowed ground where the World Trade
Center Towers once stood, and give people a place where they can come to
pray and find true peace and hope at a time when so many lives are in
turmoil……
And so on.
Look, I understand that the Muslim angle — for want of a better phrase — has a lot to do with all of this, but it’s important to keep in mind that part of the reason why the Park51 project is offensive is that it’s an attempt to leech off the memory of 9/11 for a political (and financial) agenda.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t like the term “ground zero mosque” — because it makes it sound like the primary objection is to the freedom of worship near ground zero. If this was just a mosque, with no larger agenda than to provide prayer-space for local Muslims, I truly would not care. But Park51 is intended to be some kind of 13 story Islamic Epcot Center. That’s what has always offended me about it. Imam Rauf has a much bigger agenda than merely giving local Muslim cab drivers, store owners and stock brokers a convenient prayer room. And letting him pursue that agenda so close to ground zero is simply in poor taste (it is not “surrender” to Islam or anything like that).
Keller’s project strikes me as just as tasteless, perhaps even more so, because it’s so obviously a publicity stunt intended to heighten interfaith tensions. On the other hand it’s also utterly predictable, which is why I continue to believe the biggest outrage in this whole affair is the staggering stupidity of Michael Bloomberg and the Obama administration for letting it come to this in the first place.