Mosque Issue Won’t Go Away
Ten years ago Dean Koldenhoven was faced with making a similar decision over the location of an Islamic center that officials in New York City and in cities across the country are currently confronting.
Controversy has erupted in New York City over the request by a Muslim group to build a new mosque and community center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center attacks, which occurred almost a decade ago and were done in the name of Islam.
Last week President Barrack Obama waded into the discussion, essentially indicating support for the mosque. Since then, he has backed off on his comments. Nonetheless, comments—many of them anti-mosque—have filled the Internet.
The same issue right now confronts communities in California, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
For Koldenhoven, a member of the Christian Reformed Church, allowing a mosque to build or relocate in your community is a matter of religious freedom and tolerance. He says he is surprised that people continue to "spew hatred" out against Muslims. "I'm watching the hotspots across the country and seeing that the same thing is happening" as happened a decade ago in Palos Heights, Illinois, he said.
Ten years ago, an Islamic group wanted to buy a former Reformed Church in America building and asked the city council in Palos Heights to give them permission to do so. But the request caused an uproar in Palos Heights. Many residents did not want a Muslim house of prayer to be located in their community. They packed city hall and person after person came to the microphone to demand the city to keep the Muslims out.
As mayor, Koldenhoven stood up in favor of allowing the Al Salam Mosque Foundation to receive the zoning permit that would allow the foundation to convert the church into a mosque and school. Many of the city council members sided with the people who complained about the prospect of a mosque as they spoke in council chambers, on the streets, in businesses, and even in churches in the community.
"I couldn't believe what was happening. I wondered what happened to what Jesus said about loving your neighbor. For me, it was a no-brainer. It was an issue of freedom of religion," Koldenhoven said in an interview this week.
"I believed we had to do this—to let the Muslims move into the building. When it happened in 2000, before 2001, people in general didn’t like the Muslims. It hurt me when people who are so good in other ways showed hatred in this issue."
He knew one man who came often to city council meetings and often spoke positively about city affairs. But in this instance he was incensed that people who professed Islam wanted to be his neighbors.
A decade later, Koldenhoven said, he is sad to see that the same hatred exists, and is perhaps even more virulent because of the terrorist attacks that occurred onSept. 11, 2001, in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania, where there was an aborted attempt.
Having grown up on the south side of Chicago as a member of the Christian Reformed Church in the midst of Irish Catholics, he learned a level of religious tolerance. And his faith always taught him to follow Christ’s command of loving your neighbor.
A bricklayer by trade, he got into politics later in life, and his position in favor of the mosque probably caused his defeat as mayor in the election that followed the controversy. (The Al Salam Mosque Foundation eventually decided to go elsewhere.)
"You know, I often get asked to speak to young people in high school and college, and I tell them how important it is for each of us to stand up for the rights of others," Koldenhoven said this week in an interview with a Chicago newspaper.
"If you're in a group of five people and one person makes a derogatory racial remark or expresses religious intolerance, it is your duty to stand up to them and tell them what they have said is wrong. Because if you don’t do that, that person will go on repeating the remark. Also, by staying silent you’re just as guilty."
Bruce Adema, ecumenical officer for the Christian Reformed Church in North America, says the CRC has no formal stance on the issue of whether communities should be receptive to requests by Muslims to locate a mosque in their area.
But he points out that the proposed Muslim community center in New York City is several blocks away from the World Trade Center site. "It's not in any line of view of the site. It's to be built in an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory store," he said.
Adema, who is also director of Canadian ministries for the CRCNA, says the backlash in the U.S. against mosque locations worries him. It makes him wonder.
"Is the U.S. about to abandon its principles of freedom of religion, tolerance, pluralism, etc.? I wonder: are Muslims second-class Americans? May rights be denied them?
"I wonder: If the Muslim community center is forbidden, what future religious facilities might be forbidden?" he asked.
Currently, a group of Muslims is seeking to convert a former health food store in the town of Wilson, Wisc., into the county’s first mosque. The effort "is opposed by many local residents, many of them from nearby Oostburg, who say they fear a mosque will attract potential terrorists or will not fit in with the surrounding Christian culture," says an article in the Sheboygan Press.
But Rev. Les Kuiper, senior pastor of First Christian Reformed Church of Oostburg, says he has no problems with the mosque being built. His comments have drawn some criticism, but, he says, he also received many supportive comments.
"I do believe Muslims have a constitutional right to locate a mosque in our community and that our response as Christians should be to make sure we are good neighbors. That way we can open up opportunities for our Muslim neighbors to ask us about what motivates us," says Kuiper.
