In lower Manhattan last weekend, an internet evangelist named Bill Keller held a meeting in a makeshift church, not far from what used to be the World Trade Center. He called upon the gathered faithful to help him in his great task: The construction of a “9/11 Christian Centre at Ground Zero”, a counterweight to the Islamic cultural centre which is being planned in the same part of town, and which has been the central topic of an angry and unfocused national conversation all summer.
Rev Keller, who became a preacher after serving a federal sentence for insider trading, was clear about his own intentions, however. As he explained to the New York Times, Muslims “can go to their mosque and preach the lies of Islam and I’ll come here to preach the truth of the Gospel”. He also opined that the people worshipping in the lower Manhattan mosque – if it ever gets built, which seems unlikely – would be...