Pat Dollard

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Detroit News:

Dearborn (Detroit News) — The local head of a national Muslim civil rights group says a Christian prayer summit to be held at Ford Field next week promotes anti-Muslim sentiment and is warning local mosques to step up their security.

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations — Michigan, met Wednesday with Muslim activists to voice his concern over the rhetoric he fears could be at the center of the event Nov. 11.

“There’s a bigger force or movement behind this prayer summit and how they’re literally demonizing Muslims,” he said.

But Metro Detroit pastors involved in the event say the gathering is merely meant to help Detroit, not target Muslims.

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Bishop Edgar Vann of Second Ebenezer Church. “People are coming here to pray for our city and that’s what I’m concerned about. Christians will be praying, but it’s open to anyone.”

The Call is being promoted as a 24-hour long prayer event aimed at lifting the city out of its “greatest darkness.” Its website says attendees will “gather to this city that has become a microcosm of our national crisis — economic collapse, racial tension, the rising tide of the Islamic movement, and the shedding of innocent blood of our children in the streets and our unborn.”

Senior pastor Jerry Weinzierl of Grace Christian Church in Sterling Heights said the event is not anti-Muslim.”It’s not to pray against anybody,” he said. “It is a very positive movement of Christians gathering together to pray.”