An associate pastor at a Florida church planning to burn copies of the Qur'an to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks says it won't result in any deaths.
Top U.S. officials and military commanders have denounced the plan and warned the threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book could endanger U.S. troops abroad.
"I don't believe that anyone would die as a result of something we do," Wayne Sapp, an associate pastor at the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, told CBC News. "People have to be accountable for their own actions."
"If a radical element of Islam is violent, if it's out to take American lives, today it will use this as an excuse. Tomorrow it will find something else."
The White House, the U.S. State Department and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, all slammed the church's plan on Tuesday.
Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs has also condemned the plan.
Despite the criticism, the church appears undaunted.
"We feel like the Qur'an is a very deceptive, very violent teaching," Sapp said. "It leads people in a direction that as we see in radical Islam, brings about a very violent nature."
Sapp said the plan has brought worldwide attention to the issue of radical Islam.
The Dove World Outreach Center is led by Pastor Terry Jones, who appeared on CBS's Early Show, to say the burning will proceed.
Other religious groups are firing back, planning their own events in response.
