Homeland Insecurity

One part of the book under review—Homeland—tells a story that involves two members of the Center for Public Justice. The story is both encouraging and sad at the same time.

Back in 2000, more than a year before 9/11, a controversy arose in Palos Heights, Illinois, over the plans of the Al Salam Mosque Foundation to purchase a church building and property. When word of the plans caught the attention of residents who feared Muslims and Arabs, an attempt was made by two city council members to thwart the purchase. They urged the city council to buy the church to use as a recreation center and to pay the Al Salam Mosque Foundation for its initial costs in trying to purchase the building.

The mayor at the time was Dean Koldenhoven, a member of the Palos Heights Christian Reformed Church, a Republican, and later, because of the stand he took in this incident, the winner of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. After weeks of controversy, much of it taking place behind the scenes and underground, Mayor Koldenhoven vetoed the city council's decision to purchase the church. The council could not muster a large enough counter-vote to override the veto, so the mayor's decision stood. The controversy was never really about the town's need for a recreation center, but about fear of Arab Muslims by a large number of town residents.

Mayor Koldenhoven said he made his decision because of his commitment to protect the Constitution's First Amendment and because Jesus said, love your neighbor. Among the mayor's supporters was another Center for Public Justice member, Michael VanderWeele, professor at Trinity Christian College, who could not fathom how town residents—many of them members of the town's more than 21 churches—could condone racism or religious discrimination.

The story of fear and courage, of hatred and love, in Palos Heights in 2000 is just one of many stories about middle America—the American homeland—told in this book by journalist Dale Maharidge with photographs by Michael Williamson. It is a book well worth reading right now, before the election, or as soon after the election as possible.

The stories the book tells illuminate American life today, divided as it is along several fault lines. Maharidge traveled the country, stopping in small towns and rural areas off the beaten path, inquiring into remarkable incidents and the heart-deep concerns of different kinds of Americans. What he found was two distinct Americas, one in places like Silicon Valley and Manhattan's Upper West Side, the other in small, often poor, hard-up towns.

In the story about Muslims seeking entrance to Palos Heights he concluded that the tension was not so much racial as it was religious, with roots going back as far as the medieval Christian crusades. For many Americans, the United States is a Christian country, and the entrance of too many Muslims would mean its demise. Regardless of what President Bush or any other president does to build a Homeland Security department, many Americans in heartland and elsewhere will feel "homeland insecurity" as long as the Muslim population is growing.

But is America the kind of country that should privilege Christians and secularists over Muslims? Or should we try to build an open society that rejects religious discrimination? Koldenhoven and VanderWeele believe that Christians are called to do the latter, but it takes work and listening to one another. And that is difficult to do in times of deep need when people are losing jobs and feeling abandoned.

One of Williamson's photos shows the abandoned Homestead steel works in Rankin, Pennsylvania. Tough, hard-working men who once made steel there helped build America and also helped to defend it by working overtime during World War II. Today, other countries produce steel at lower cost, jobs have moved elsewhere, and whole towns have lost their vitality. The old spirit of the steel works survives, however, in those who produced the bumper sticker that Williamson photographed on a truck in Phoenix, Arizona. It said, "God, Guns, and Guts Made America: Let's Keep All Three."

Is there another way to think about God and America's future than in terms of guns and guts? Or perhaps we should ask, is there a better way to think about protecting the freedom of citizens who have the courage (guts) to honor God and to serve their civic neighbors today? Koldenhoven showed guts in the decision he made. Where will we take our stand in the months and years ahead on the issues that now divide America?

—The Editor