Books won’t stay banned.  They won’t burn.  Ideas won’t go to jail.  In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost.  The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

~Alfred Whitney Griswold, New York Times, 24 February 1959

I found this quote interesting in light of the recent threat by a Florida pastor to burn some copies of the Koran. While my initial concerns with this plan involved the safety of my son who is soon to depart for Afghanistan and my former teammates who continue to labor in Muslim areas of Asia, my greater concerns are for the souls of men and women, boys and girls, who would be spiritually damaged by such an act of aggression. Not many people have ever been won to Christ by insulting them from a distance and with that which they hold so dear.  Far more important than our safety and national security anyway (even if this burning threat would somehow help with that) are the souls of those cut off from Christ.

As followers of Jesus (Asa/Isa/Yeshua) we have a Book that contains not only the best ideas but one that reflects the very heart of God.  Rather than trying to destroy some other book, let’s focus our attention on putting God’s Book into the language and the hands of every people, tongue, tribe, and nation so that God might receive the glory and His fame spread to every dark corner of this world.  After all, it is the Gospel that is “God’s power for salvation” (Romans 1:16).  Shouldn’t we focus our attention on what Griswold called “better ideas”?