Book Burning in America

Recently I keep running across references to book burning. As a writer I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever someone mentions books and fire in the same sentence. You may say that I am needlessly concerned about this practice. That things such as this don't happen anymore. Oh how wrong you are.

When You think of book burnings what is the first thing that comes to mind?

Is it images of the massive pyres that burned across Nazi Germany during Hitlers rule? That was certainly what I always envisaged. Then I kept seeing references to book burning here in the U.S. "Surely Not?!" said I "This barbaric and senseless practice can't be taking place here". Well it turns out that book burning is alive and well in the land of the free. In fact there are groups who actively encourage book burning. Don't believe me? check out the Landover Baptist Church (commonfreeman.com does not take responsibility for any objects or body parts smashed through your monitor while reading their web site).

Here is a little excerpt from their page:

"The truth is, burning a book is one of the most loving things a Christian could do for a person they really care about. The Landover Baptist Church is proud to be sponsoring America's Largest Book Burning on Satan's Birthday, October 31st. This will be the third consecutive year we have held the event. Last October, we had 152,800 American Christians show up for the event. We burned over 3.4 million books! That's right! Don't let the numbers dissuade you from holding a book burning at your local church this Halloween. Thousands of churches in America have collected millions of Harry Potter books to be burned that very night. As a Christian, you should be eager to participate in this Bible based tradition. Burning books just like the first Christians did in New Testament is a great way to say "no" to Satan and "yes" to Jesus."

WOW! 3.4 million books just set alight and destroyed. What exactly are these people and others like them afraid of? How is burning books helping you "say "no" to Satan and "yes" to Jesus"?

Apparently one of their goals is to protect the world from the Harry Potter series. According to Landover these books are worse than the satanic bible (Satan checks his closet for J K Rowling before he goes to bed). And as hard as it is to believe this actually gets worse. They encourage school children to take any of these books they find from school libraries, public libraries and stores.

"We're giving True Christian® school children the Biblical authority to remove these evil books from their school libraries, bookstores, homes, grocery stores, and anywhere they find them," said Pastor Deacon Fred. "All they need to say is, Jesus wants me to take this book!"

I need to try that next time I'm in Costco: "Jesus wants me to take this 56" 1080p flat panel TV". There's not a court in the land would convict me with that excuse.

But then is book burning any different? Is that not the theft of knowledge? Books help us connect to the world and each other in ways we may have never considered. If we truly are the people we claim to be and we actually believe in things like freedom of speech, then we need to end this senseless act.

For a look at a timeline of book burning in America check out Elliot Feldman's article at AssociatedContent.com