Reply #5: Reading Jones' words

[gratuitous]

I don't see where he's saying he might back down. They're praying up a storm at Dove World, I have no doubt. What they are praying for, however, is probably not guidance on their planned course of action; they've already decided to do it, and Jones knows how it he would look to his flock if he told his minions not to burn their books (hint: not good). In fact, he doesn't dare back down. As much as burning books might provoke people thousands of miles away, changing his mind and not burning books would look far worse to people much closer to him. People who clearly don't have too much compunction about using violence as a means of attaining their ends.

Jones may have painted himself into a corner, but short of a convenient divine revelation, he's going to chance pissing off a bunch of far-off Muslims rather than the people in his pews.