Excerpt:
Everyone has made the apt analogy of Rev. Terry Jones' plan to barbecue a Koran to the Piss Christ episode a few years back, and it is instructive. In that 1987 episode of religious history in American life, artist (using the term loosely) Andres Serrano took a crucifix, put it in a jar of urine, and took a picture of it. That was his art. It was offensive for the obvious reason of depicting an image holy to Christians in such a way, and doubly offensive because it won an award that was in part funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA was already a controversial use of taxpayer dollars; in Serrano's case, it became a very literal metaphor for how many Americans saw the whole program's use of their hard-earned money.
But the case of the Rev. Jones and the Koran is a little different. His piece of performance art isn't taxpayer funded, for one thing. And unlike Piss Christ, Jones' work actually has sparked riots clear on the other side of the world, even though it hasn't happened yet. Unlike the Koran he's threatened but not yet burned, Jones' effigy has in fact been burned on the streets of Kabul, along with the American flag. Anyone waiting for the militant Methodists to go wild and burn effigies over Serrano's art has been waiting now for 23 years after the fact. That's one slow moving riot.
But here's the question: How did the rioters of Kabul find out about Jones's Koran stunt in the first place? Terry Jones isn't exactly Rick Warren, megachurch pastor and international celebrity. The Rev. Jones pastors a congregation so small it might qualify as a microchurch. His entire flock wouldn't even fill up one of Warren's Sunday school classes. He's not influential outside probably ten blocks around his church, isn't on the bestseller list, doesn't have anything infamous in his past that we know of yet, and he's not one of those pastors that other pastors cite in their sermons. So how did this guy become internationally infamous in the span of a few weeks?