Gainesville Pastor in Koran Burnings Remains Unrepentant

Yet Terry Jones, the pastor who organized a mock trial that ended with the burning of a Koran and led to violence and deaths in Afghanistan, remains unrepentant. He said he was “saddened” and “moved” by the deaths, but given the chance, he would do it all over again.

“It was intended to stir the pot; if you don’t shake the boat, everyone will stay in their complacency,” Mr. Jones said in an interview at his office in the Dove World Outreach Center on Saturday. “Emotionally, it’s not all that easy. People have tried to make us responsible for the people who are killed. It’s unfair and somewhat damaging.

“Did our action provoke them,” the pastor said. “Of course. Is it a provocation that can be justified? Is it a provocation that should lead to death? When lawyers provoke me, when banks provoke me, when reporters provoke me, I can’t kill them. That would not fly.”

Mr. Jones, 59, with his white walrus moustache, craggy red face and basso profundo voice, seems like a man from a different time. Sitting at his desk in his mostly unadorned office, he keeps a Bible in a worn brown leather cover by his side and a “Braveheart” poster within sight. Both, he said, provide sustenance for the mission at hand: Spreading the word that Islam and the Koran are instruments of “violence, death and terrorism.”

In recent weeks, Mr. Jones said, he had received 300 death threats, mostly via e-mail and telephone, and had been told by the F.B.I. that there was a $2.4 million contract on his life.

For protection, his followers — the 20 to 30 who are still left — openly carry guns (they have licenses, he said) and have become more rigorous about checking their cars and the bags of visitors. The church is locked. Police protection is sometimes required when the members travel, Mr. Jones said.

Mr. Jones’s rustic church sits on 20 acres of land, up a long driveway that is dotted with Australian pines. There is a small above-ground pool, and three police cars idled nearby on Saturday.

“I don’t right now feel personally afraid,” he said. “But we are armed.”

Mr. Jones said he the decision to hold the mock trial of the Koran on March 20 was not made lightly. “We were worried,” he said. “We knew it was possible. We knew they might act with violence.”

There were similar predications last year, when Mr. Jones threatened to burn the Islamic holy book on Sept. 11. When that decision was being discussed, throngs of reporters descended on the church, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates personally called and asked him not to do it. President Obama appealed to him over the airwaves.

This time would be different — and not just because the event would be held in relative obscurity, with only a small group of sympathizers. This time, Mr. Jones said, there would be a trial, a fact that he said added heft to his decision.

He teamed up with Truth TV, a satellite channel out of California that is led by Ahmed Abaza, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity and who, Mr. Jones said, sympathizes with the church’s message.

The pastor said Truth TV reached out to him last year after he canceled his plan to burn the Koran, and a partnership of sorts has flourished since then. Mr. Abaza helped provide him with most of the witnesses and lawyers for the mock trial, Mr. Jones said.

“I was not the judge,” said Mr. Jones, who also said he has read only portions of the Koran and not the entire text.

There would be a prosecutor and a defense lawyer for the Koran, an imam from Texas. There would be witnesses — although the defense did not call any — and a jury.

Yes, he said, he knew some of the jurors, Mr. Jones said, and others came to the event after learning about it through his group’s Facebook page. (“People were afraid, so not many volunteered,” he said.) And yes, perhaps, his Facebook followers voted on the online poll that sentenced the Koran to burning.

Nevertheless, he said, “It was as fair a trial as we could have.”

Truth TV streamed the mock trial live to the Arab world in Arabic but chose not to broadcast the actual burning.

Mr. Jones’s mission is not a popular one in these parts. The Dove World Outreach Center’s membership evaporated after his preaching began to focus on what Mr. Jones said are the dangers of Islam.

“We don’t have any members,” said Mr. Jones. “It’s not something your average person wants to do.

“People want to hear the good news. But the church has a responsibility to speak about the word of God. But it also has to speak out about what is right — be it abortion or Islam. Churches and pastors are afraid.”

No longer welcome in Gainesville — which he said he considered too small and unenlightened to understand his message — he is seeking to move. A bigger city, like Los Angeles, might be more open to his message, he added.

First, though, he has to sell the church’s property, which is not easy in Florida, which is one of the nation’s foreclosure capitals. Meanwhile, as his personal stake in his mission grows deeper, his bank account is running dry.

“Things are not easy at this particular time,” said Mr. Jones, a Missouri native whose first career was as hotel manager. “This has not been a money-making venture.”

Residents in this college town, home to the University of Florida, are also less than thrilled.

“We have definitely felt pressure to move,” he added. “Gainesville will not award us keys to the city.”

Out front of the church, signs that read “Islam is of the Devil” have been edited by outsiders to say “Love All Men.” In a housing complex across the street, some of the residents said they cannot wait for Mr. Jones to leave. They said they feared for their safety and were outraged by his message.

“Why are they trying to incite hatred and anger?” asked Shawnna Kochman. “They are mean. God is meant to have loved everyone. It’s a cult.”

via nytimes.com