On their way to Byzantium in May 1096, Christian soldiers in the First Crusade made a detour in Worms.
Setting aside for a time their ultimate goal of retaking the Holy Lands from Islam, the crusaders spread malicious and false rumors against the German city's minority Jewish inhabitants, inciting riots in the streets.
Many terrified Jews found refuge in the palace of the local bishop, looking on in horror as their helpless comrades were "killed like oxen and dragged through the market places and streets like sheep to the slaughter." Soon the mob laid siege to the bishop's palace, however, and the bloodletting continued. The Christians lassoed a Jewish man, Isaac of Worms, around the neck and dragged his body through the muddy streets.
"You may still be saved," the crusaders finally said to him. "Do you wish to convert?" Isaac, who could not speak, bravely signaled with his finger for the thugs to go ahead and cut off his head, and they complied.
The synagogue in Worms, built in 1034, was destroyed.
Nine years later, with the slogan "Improving Christian-Jewish Relations," some Christians who had not participated in the pogrom sought to buy land where the synagogue had stood. Were they planning to rebuild the Jewish house of worship in a gesture of contrition and good will? Not at all. They wanted to construct an expensive Christian cathedral and "community center" for all of Worms.
"My heart goes out to all of the victims of 1096," the priest of the proposed structure stated." They are all heroes. Religion did not separate the victims on that terrible day. Whether Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or any other faith, all of these people made up the fabric of Worms. They all died together."
"Freedom of religion is something we hold dear," the priest continued. "It is the core of what Christianity is all about, and it is what people worldwide respect about our faith. German Christians want to be both good Germans and good Christians. They can be the best assets the Jewish community has in combating crusader radicalism. We believe that people of good faith can use the common core of their religions to find solutions to problems that will let them live together."
The Jewish community, still grieving its dead, was asked to give its blessing to the massive new structure. Insulted and shocked, some came out in strong opposition but were quickly shouted down as bigots. What would the rest do? Didn't they care about religious freedom?
The first part of the above parable is true, paraphrased from Thomas Asbridge's The First Crusade. Men who claimed strong faith engaged in a wanton orgy of slaughter in Worms, supposedly in the name of Christ. The second part, about plans for a Christian church on the site of the carnage, is fiction, a writer's outlandish flight of fancy. Such an insensitive religious response to a religiously motivated atrocity could never happen, right?
Wrong. It is happening in our day, right in front of us. Only this time, it is not Christians who, in the name of tolerance, are demanding the right to build a monument to their faith on the site of the carnage. It is Muslims, spearheaded by a self-proclaimed moderate group known as the Cordoba Initiative.
In fact, the statements of the "priest" are simply a slightly reworded digest of comments made by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is seeking to build a $100-million, 13-story "community and cultural center" two blocks from the World Trade Center site, where Muslim fanatics murdered nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. Islam may stand for many things, but religious freedom is not the first item on my list.
Rauf, author of What's Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West, says the whole point of the enterprise is to heal wounds, not open them. If so, he has chosen a strange way to accomplish this noble goal. It appears that Cordoba House, at least so far, has opened far more wounds than it has healed. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani calls the proposed mosque "a desecration."
The project has drawn fire from many families of 9/11 victims, and support from some Christian groups that advocate religious liberty, including Sojourners. Known by opponents as "the Ground Zero mosque" and by supporters as Cordoba House, the proposed structure has won the support of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the opposition of the Anti-Defamation League.
Many question the imam himself, notwithstanding his U.S. citizenship and claims to moderate Islam. For example, Rauf has declined to reveal the sources of funding for Cordoba House, though his own ties to largely Muslim Malaysia are extensive. Some of his comments, not in his books, should give one pause.
Soon after 9/11, Rauf told 60 Minutes, "I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened, but U.S. policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.... Osama bin Laden is made in the U.S.A." The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2004, "Imam Feisal, who argues for a Western style of Islam that promotes democracy and tolerance, said there could be little progress until the U.S. acknowledged backing dictators and the U.S. President gave an "America Culpa' speech to the Muslim world."
It would appear that President Obama's well-documented international apologies and 2009 speech to the Muslim world are a direct (though so far ineffective) response to the imam's directive. I await the President's apology to the 9/11 families if this mosque replaces the Twin Towers on the New York skyline.
Even the name of the New York project, Cordoba House, might raise a few discerning eyebrows. Cordoba, of course, refers to the capital of the Muslim Caliphate in Spain, captured in 711 and held for 300 years before the West regained control.
Muslim doctrine considers all such territorial reversals only temporary, viewing them as invitations to further jihad. Centuries after the Islamic crusaders were repulsed, faithful Muslims the world over still claim Spain as their own. Referring to Cordoba near the 9/11 site would send an unmistakable signal to Muslim fanatics around the world, whatever the intentions of Rauf and his associates.
Muslims frequently remind Christians of the horrors of the Crusades, and indeed the demonic atrocities perpetrated against Muslims, Jews, and even fellow Christians a millennium ago have, not surprisingly, caused many to question the validity of the faith. But are Christians ready to lovingly point out the transgressions of Muslims, both ancient and modern?
If our commitment to religious freedom means anything, we'd better be.
Stan Guthrie is author of All That Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us, coming in November from Baker Books.
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