After a well-intentioned effort at reaching out to the Muslim community, a local Christian group has found itself at the middle of an international media frenzy.

According to the website of “Grandpa Abraham,” an ecumenical Christian group in Durham, the group’s mission is “to promote and celebrate the equality of all religious traditions.” This week, they learned that their mission may be more complicated than they first anticipated. In response to the recent proposed Qur’an burnings at a small church in Florida, the group launched a campaign to encourage Christians to treat the Qur’an exactly as they treat the Bible. But their efforts at promoting religious equality were of little comfort to members of the Muslim community.

Grandpa Abraham’s first initiative was to begin marketing versions of the Qur’an targeted at specific demographics. “The Teen Life-Application Qur’an was the centerpiece of that campaign,” said the group’s coordinator, Marcia Tillman . Also planned: the American Patriot’s Qur’an, the Qur’an for Surfers, and a Qur’an designed to look just like a copy of Seventeen Magazine. “Personally, I’m a New Testament kind of Christian,” Tillman explained. “So I also bought a bunch of Qur’ans, and tore out the first 80 percent of the pages. It’s easier to carry around that way.”

In addition to their publishing efforts, the members of Grandpa Abraham also intended to bring Islam’s holy text into popular culture. “Bumper stickers, tattoos, everything,” Tillman recalled. “And what’s our favorite public activity, as Christians? Bible-beating! Well, when we invited our Muslim friends to a Qur’an Beating, they seemed really upset by the suggestion.”

On Duke’s campus, the Depressio interviewed one Muslim who was disgusted by the group’s overtures. “Wait, you mean they said they were trying to reach out to us? I thought this was another fringe group, trying to make us feel unwelcome.” He gazed across the quad, to where several Qur’an-wielding Grandpa Abraham members were engaged in an angry debate with a professor of evolutionary biology.  ”It’s just embarrassing. I’d rather they just burn the thing and get it overwith.”

For her part, Maria Tillman is contrite. “I was heartbroken to see Christians treating Muslims so terribly,” she says. “I just thought they’d want to be treated like everyone else. Looks like I was wrong; not everybody wants to see their holiest scriptures reduced to the size of a postage stamp and hanging from the mirror of my Subaru. Well, live and learn.”