Christian Center to Open Near Proposed Ground Zero Mosque

“We’ve watched this movie before, and in Great Britain and in France and even some of the other countries, there’s a pattern, there’s sort of a template for all this, and that is massive migration then the establishment of mosques and schools, and then attempts to impose Shariah law on a given territory or enclave,” Lafferty said.

Rauf, author of What’s Right With Islam Is What’s Right With America, in 2008 supported efforts to incorporate aspects of Shariah law into British law—a move the Archbishop of Canterbury also endorsed at the time. The Rt. Rev. Rowan Williams told the BBC there was “a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law.”

In a 2009 Washington Post On Faith op-ed, Rauf said U.S. law and Shariah law had common characteristics. “The principles behind American secular law are similar to Shariah law—that we protect life, liberty and property, that we provide for the common welfare, that we maintain a certain amount of modesty,” he wrote. “What Muslims want is to ensure that their secular laws are not in conflict with the Quran or the Hadith, the sayings of Muhammad.”

Warren Larson, director of the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies at Columbia International University, said he isn’t convinced the mosque is part of a grand conspiracy to establish Muslim dominance in the U.S. But he said building a large Islamic center near Ground Zero sends a different message.

“I’m against [the mosque] because I think it’s going to be perceived wrongly,” said Larson, who ministered among Muslims in Pakistan for 40 years. “It’s going to be perceived as a possible takeover, but I don’t think it is. I don’t think that’s what Muslims are thinking. They’re thinking this is a house of prayer. And Muslims do pray; Muslims don’t just blow up buildings.”

Too many Christians are responding to Islam out of fear instead of faith, said Rick Love, co-founder of Peace Catalyst and former director of Youth With a Mission’s U.S. Muslim outreach. He said the vast majority of Muslims aren’t terrorists, and while refusing to take sides on the mosque issue, Love said upholding religious liberty gives the U.S. the moral authority to challenge nations that persecute religious minorities.

For Larson, the real danger is not the encroachment of Islam in the U.S. “I hope it doesn’t come across as arrogant, but my main concern in the United States is not Islam, it’s not fundamentalist Islam, it’s weak Christianity,” he said. “It’s Christianity that is less than what it should be. … It’s the sense that the church is often not the church. I think our main struggle is not political, but it’s really to be good, strong, vibrant Christians who love the Lord and live for Him.”

Keller agrees. He has called Islam “a 1,400-year-old lie from hell” and has been the focus of a protest by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. But Keller said his reason for founding the 9/11 Christian Center is not to set up a confrontation with Islam as much as to present an alternative to it.

“I’m looking for people who are lost, hurting, looking for hope and answers; that’s who we’re looking to attract,” said Keller, who plans to commute from St. Petersburg, Fla., to lead the Sunday services until the center opens in January. “That’s why Islam has grown. That’s why some of the cults and false religions have grown so fast because people, quite honestly Christians, have hid behind the four walls of the church, they’ve taken themselves out of the marketplace. … My whole thing is to get into the marketplace and not battle Islam for souls but battle Satan for souls.”