I don't approve of burning holy books. Neither do I  approve of burning people, nor bombing them, stoning them, starving them or marginalizing them because they don't believe the way I do. 

But  we ought to think very carefully about what David Petraeus has said before we start cheering, because within his indisputable claim — a Quran-burning in the U.S. will have dangerous repercussions for Americans around the world — is a troubling idea:

We shouldn't do (or at least shouldn't allow) this thing because radical Muslims will seize on it as evidence that all Americans are evil, and that's not fair.

Well, no, it's not, any more than blaming all Muslims for 9/11 was fair ... except, well, we did that — maybe not we, individually, but we, nationally. 

And right- (that is, left-) thinking Americans have decried that all along, just as they are decrying Terry Jones' plans for Saturday.

And far too many of them are guilty of the same sort of thinking aimed in the opposite direction, spouting broad and inaccurate condemnations of Christians.

Jones is one pastor, with a congregation of 30.

There are many Christians who agree with him; there are more who don't, including many who have been very vocal and visible in their disagreement. And yet this week, Terry Jones is the poster pastor for Christians and Americans overseas will suffer for that, just as the 9/11 hijackers were poster radical Islamists and their nonradical coreligionists have suffered, and so on, and so on, and so on.

It's been ever thus, and that's wrong, in exactly the same way that Terry Jones is wrong. 

It's called prejudice. 

+++ 

We assign every Other we meet to groups of friends or foes, based on small amounts of easily obtainable and not entirely reliable information. That's the way our minds work, and it's not inherently bad. Those who make the most accurate snap judgments are the ones most likely to survive to pass along their genes.

Of course, that's true of every animal that chooses between fighting and fleeing. Humans are supposed to be able to go beyond that initial instinct and make rational determinations: Yes, Middle Eastern male Islamists attacked. Does that mean that this man with dark hair is a Muslim? From the Middle East? If so, does that mean *this* person in front of me right now is going to cause harm? If *that* is so, what can I do to avert it?Are any of these probabilities sufficient that I can base an action on them?

Or do I just live in the fear provoked in that first cellular reaction?

Prejudice. 

+++

My husband and I recently took my mother-in-law to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. My inlaws are not evil. They are elderly people who have lived their entire lives in one small town in the Bible Belt. Their world view is very narrow.

They are afraid of cities. I used to believe that they were simply intimidated by fast-moving traffic and complexity (as, occasionally, am I), but I have come to realize that in their "us vs. them" lives, in cities they face too many of the Other. 

Across from our hotel was a salon named Darque Tan. Perhaps "Darque" was intended to hint at breasts bared on the Riviera, and surely not to suggest rooms darkened while chemicals dripped slowly into the veins of skin-cancer patients. My father-in-law seized on the word, which he pronounced "darkie," and from then on, every time we saw someone whose skin was darker than his florid northern European coloring, he'd announce, "He's been to Darkie Tan."

Or, worse, "She's a real darkie!"

At first, my husband said mildly, "Dad, please don't say that." (Well, she is!)

Then we tried logic. Remember the best man at our wedding? (Yes, but wasn't he Jamaican and not really black?) Remember the men at Fort Leonard Wood who served with you in Korea? (Yes, but they volunteered; they weren't real niggers.) Remember when we used to sing at the Nicodemus church? (Yes, but ....) 

There was always a "but." There simply wasn't room in his mind to see people who were different from him as individuals. He didn't know them.

And my mild-mannered husband eventually slammed on the brakes and roared, "You WILL NOT repeat that word in my presence!" 

No hearts or minds were changed, and at Mayo, my poor confused mother-in-law shrank back in terror from the Indian physician.

+++

That's where we're stuck, in that initial prejudice.  The people we know, the "good ones," are still considered the exceptions, no matter how long we live without ever meeting, face to face, a Muslim carrying a box-cutter or a Christian burning a Quran or a dark-skinned person who embodies the stereotypes we've assigned. Those who wish for better resort to roaring at people to shut up because their words and their actions are dismissed.

Last week in a study group before church, a woman said, "You know, I sometimes think I want to be on the poster for a while, but then I come to my senses."

We knew what she meant. We're tired of being judged as spiritual kin to people we would never stand beside, but we know what the response will be if we say that publicly. I  know what the response will be in this forum.

This woman wasn't at Acre. She didn't feed paintings into the bonfires of Fiorenza. She didn't prod Jews toward the gas chambers or torch a mosque. She's married to a Buddhist. She has been active in advocating for same-sex marriage rights, ordination for gays and lesbians, immigrant rights, environmental reforms. She is a good woman and a courageous one. I'd like to see her on a poster.

But I doubt it would make much difference. The response would still be, "Yeah, but ..."

We need to get past that. We need to use our resources to give credit where credit is due, instead of unthinkingly linking "You Christians ... Terry Jones ... Scott Roeder ... Fred Phelps" or "Muslims ... terrorism ... stoning ... genital mutilation."

There is good to be had. It's time to get past caving in to those haters in every camp who want to blame an entire group for the abuses of a few. Those who mistake the extremities for the heart are doing the world a grave disservice, and unfortunately, that doesn't just happen on the Right.