Outside Ford Field, Detroit protesters featured Baptist, Catholic and Methodist pastors who criticized Engle’s anti-Islam call.
Courtesy Of "Islam Online"
CAIRO - Answering the call of a controversial Christian group that targets Islam, thousands of worshipers from several states flocked to Ford Field stadium in Detroit for a 24-hour rally, as protesters gathered outside arguing the event was more about hatred than healing.
“God did not call us to hate,” Rev. Charles Williams of Historic Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, told The Sacramento Bee newspaper.
Williams added that Lou Engle, the leader of TheCall movement that has drawn criticism over its prayer rally call, is promoting an extremist agenda that is anti-Detroit and anti-minority.
“Religious leaders who support this event should really take a look at what its undertones are all about,” he said.
“As a Christian pastor I support prayer, but not to bash another religion, nor to hide behind the subterfuge of political gamesmanship.”
The protests erupted outside Ford Field stadium where thousands gathered to tackle issues such as the economy, racial strife, same-sex relationships and abortion.
But the decade-old organization known as TheCall has said Detroit is a “microcosm of our national crisis” in all areas, including “the rising tide of the Islamic movement.”
Leaders of TheCall believe that a satanic spirit is shaping all parts of US society, and it must be challenged through intensive Christian prayer and fasting.
“We need Jesus' face to appear all across America,” Engle thundered to a cheering crowd on Friday night.
Outside Ford Field, the protesters featured Baptist, Catholic and Methodist pastors who criticized Engle.
“I'm about the separation of faith and hate,” said the Rev. Ed Rowe of Central United Methodist Church in Detroit.
“You can't hate and be righteous,” said Germany Bennett, pastor of True Oracles of God, a Detroit church.
“Hatred is a sin. We believe in love.”
Cheryl Voglesong of Royal Oak, Mich., held up a sign that read: “Take Thy Fearmongering back to Kansas. We don't want it.”
“I'm a Christian, and we've lived peacefully with Muslims for 100 years in Detroit,” she said.
“Lou Engle and these guys are coming here to attack them? That's crazy.”
Muslims Worried
Singling out Islam as a demonic religion or faith, Engle’s anti-Islam comments were alarming to the Muslim community in Detroit.
“We don't care if they think that Islam is not 100 percent the truth or that Muslims should become Christians, that's not the issue,” Dawud Walid, executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter, told ABCNews.com.
“The issue is that a number of groups of people, including Muslims, are [described as being] possessed, and they purport that the demons should be drawn out of us.”
Abdullah El-Amin, an imam at the Muslim Center in Detroit, said he worries about the group's reasons for coming to Michigan.
“It's strange. I don't know what these people are doing,” El-Amin said.
“I know they said they were going to drive stakes in the ground to get rid of the devil on Islamic ground, so that could be the mosque. It could be Muslim homes, it could be anything if someone is that passionate.”
Spreading hatred sermons on its website, Imam El-Amin questioned the group's decision to remove that language from its website.
“When they were confronted with it, they took it off,” he said.
“So that right off tells you something's wrong. If you say you did it from God, why would you be afraid of someone saying it if you're doing God's work?”
El-Amin confirmed that he doesn’t fear TheCall or the people who run it, although he does question its rationale.
“I'm not very much concerned about these people. I'm just upset at the way that they're singling out Islam as a demonic religion or faith,” he said.
Although there are no official figures, the United States is believed to be home to between 6-8 million Muslims.
According to the Detroit Free Press, there are an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims in the Detroit area.
According to a report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Race and Gender said that Islamophobia in the US is on the rise.
A US survey has also revealed that the majority of Americans know very little about Muslims and their faith.
A recent Gallup poll, however, found 43 percent of Americans Nationwide admitted to feeling at least “a little” prejudice against Muslims.
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