I did not preach this morning. I was attending a wedding where everyone was looking toward the future rather than the past. That’s appropriate because looking ahead reminds us that life goes on. But it is also appropriate to look back. That’s what I have done in this rambling essay.
My mother died in early 2001. She was eighty-seven. I’ve often wondered what her response would have been had she lived to see the events of 11 September of that year. Of course, she would have been angry. A lifelong Democrat whose devotion to the party of FDR allowed no deviation, she might have argued that had Al Gore been elected president the attacks wouldn’t have happened. Somewhat conspiracy-minded, she might have believed those who claim the government actually brought the towers down.
Sometimes she embraced simple answers to explain the unexplainable.
Lots of simple answers have been proposed to explain what happened that Tuesday morning ten years ago. Some voices immediately began to shout, “Muslims are evil.” The attacks have led me and countless others to read more about Islam and I am convinced that blanket statement is wrong. A young Muslim woman began attending the Friday Bible study we conduct in our home. That she chose to meet with us rather than at her local mosque may suggest she wasn’t the most devout of Muslims but when we met her, she was observing the fasting that is part of Ramadan. She seemed genuinely curious about Christianity and, so far as I could tell, had no inclination to set off a bomb as she enjoyed our hospitality and the fellowship of other students. She has since returned to her homeland and I hope she went with a positive view of American Christians.
Yet, that experience has not prompted me to embrace the mantra voiced by President Bush and so many others: “Islam is a religion of peace.” I know too much about history to accept that. The roots of the 9/11 attacks run deep into Muslim soil (whether the seeds were planted by the Prophet or reflect a corruption of his teachings is for others to say). Fortunately, most Muslims have refused to nurture the plant and desire simply to live according to the noblest elements of their heritage.
Others looked at the 9/11 attacks and declared, “God was punishing America.” A well-known Southern Baptist leader began declaring this within twenty-four hours after the attack. Again, this is a simplistic answer. Apart from implying the speaker has insights into the Divine mind the average Christian does not have, it fails to recognize that during most periods of American history behavior went on that might have inspired God’s wrath. During the fabled Great Awakening, slavery was widely practiced and accepted, often being defended by the most orthodox of Christians. Jonathan Edwards, whose preaching kindled the revival in Northampton, Massachusetts, owned slaves. Of course, Indians were pushed off their lands and treaties were ignored. God could have ample justification to punish America.
The Old Testament prophets confirm that God sometimes punished nations for their sins. But the shape of that punishment was predicted with amazing clarity. So far as I know, there was no prophet sanding on a street corner on 9/10/01 predicting great silver birds would fly into the towers of commerce and into the fortress with five sides.
A few voices, just after 9/11, predicted the attacks would awaken the nation to return to God. People would repent, return to the churches, and demonstrate a renewed commitment to Christianity. It didn’t happen. Whatever bump in attendance there may have been following 9/11 was short-lived. In fact, the general decline in church attendance continued; specifically, that the number of people who are “unchurched” increased from 24% in 1991 to 37% in 2011.
Moreover, as we mark a decade since 9/11, there is a new hostility toward religion in general and Christianity in particular. Without religion, the campaign claims, the world would be a harmonious place, free from oppression, devoid of fear; you know, like the old Soviet Union.
Does religion—Christianity, in particular—make sense after 9/11? It must to many people. While church attendance is declining in the West, Christianity is actually growing in the global South. Then, too, some researchers believe they see a resurgence of interest in Christianity among young Britons—especially in London.
Still, where was God on 9/11? I’ve often thought he must have been in the cockpits of those planes shouting, “Don’t do this! Whoever you’re listening to, it’s not Me.” He was in the stairwells of the towers whispering “You can do it” to those men carrying a wheelchair-bound co-worker to safety. He was inspiring a handful of heroes as they guided strangers and friends down eighty-eight floors.
Fanciful? Sure. But is it any more fanciful than resolving the question of God’s existence because he didn’t stop the hijackings or the attacks? Why is the question of God’s existence never raised when he allows us to exercise our freedom to commit adultery, to ignore the poor, to gouge a customer, or engage in other behavior his love prohibits? The catalog of behaviors we would have God stop probably doesn’t include behaviors we cherish.
Of course, those who wouldn’t use 9/11 to argue against the existence of God, per se, might use the event to defame religion in general. One writer suggests the sacred writings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all contain passages that could be construed to endorse some version of jihad or holy war. True, some Old Testament passages, if ripped from their contexts and transformed into general policy instead of commands limited to a specific time and place, could be used to justify attacks on those with differing worldviews. But it has been centuries since Christians have used God's command to eliminate the Canaanites as precedent for dealing with non-Christians.
While Christians generally recognize the Old Testament as a venue of God’s revelation, most Christians believe the New Testament gives that revelation a greater clarity. And nothing in the New Testament can be used to justify war to further the Kingdom of God. In fact, a careful reading of the New Testament seems to affirm an approach to non-Christians marked by respect and graciousness.
This is not to say we Christians don’t believe our message is true in a final sense. Pointing to Jesus’ own claim—“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”—we argue that all other religions, philosophies, and ideologies must be measured against the Christian worldview. Despite the unpopularity of talking about the truth in this post-modern age, we still make that claim. And we do so in the face of charges that any religion claiming to possess the Truth (true truth) inevitably becomes oppressive and indifferent to the rights of others to dissent. However, we also refuse to become so pessimistic.
We Christians know how easy it is to succumb to the temptation to suppress alternative viewpoints, especially when the church is illegitimately wed to the state. Still, we insist our Founder’s way of presenting the Truth with clarity and conviction, backed by carefully reasoned arguments and, above all, with a life of integrity has always been our characteristic way to advance the message. Any approach that uses coercion is an anomaly. In fact, we invite advocates of any other worldview to join us on a level playing field where we each may present our claims without fear of oppression or retaliation. In our world, such a climate exists only in those nations that have a Christian heritage.
We are so confident of the ultimate appeal of Jesus that we are willing to allow him to be defamed and criticized. Indeed, he modeled such humble patience. Through the centuries we have observed how every new mocker is outnumbered by new devotees to Christ. In fact, the mockers discover their way is dangerous, not because it leads to stoning or beheading, but because it so often prompts those who aren’t satisfied with secondhand answers to take their own look at Jesus. This is the fulfillment of the cryptic promise Jesus made regarding his crucifixion—the event his enemies believed the final insult that would put an end to him: “If I am lifted up, I will draw all people to me.”
Another simple explanation for 9/11 might be described as the “ugly America” explanation. According to this theory America’s foreign policy and economic practices generated hatred that finally exploded on 9/11.
Certainly, America has sometimes run roughshod over smaller nations, though never matching the record of Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, or England. Though this is a sad part of our history, it isn’t the sum of our relations with other nations. At the same time, it seems disingenuous to suggest that Americans alone benefited from our presence and activity in a nation. Ironically, the Bin Laden family accrued its great wealth, in part, through its access to the Saudi royal family, access that allowed Osama’s father to gain special favors for his family and business. At the same time, the Bin Ladens benefited from their involvement with Western corporations, including, according to some sources, the Bush family oil-business.
Pat and I were in London on 21 July 2005, two weeks after the 7/7 bombings that left 52 dead (excluding the four bombers). On the 21st we were shopping at Harrods when we noticed clerks huddled together and whispering. The background music became more soothing. I asked a turbaned young Sikh what had happened. In the best tradition of store clerks defying the wisdom of superiors who hadn’t walked the floors in years, he said, “I’m not supposed to mention this but there has been another bombing attempt.” The attempt to recreate the events from two weeks before failed only because the bombs didn’t detonate, they simply smoked.
Knowing they might be caught and held by their potential victims, the would-be bombers ran. One of London’s omnipresent CCTV cameras captured one of the men as he hurried away. I was in a sporting goods store when the pictures were shown on the store’s TV. It showed a twenty-something man dressed in a jacket with New York on the front, jeans, and tennis shoes. A clerk remarked, “Look at those Nike trainers, right, we hate the west.” America has no monopoly on hypocrisy.
The evening of 9/11 the members of Congress gathered on the capitol steps and sang, “God Bless America.” The image of Democrats and Republicans joining together in that act of unity inspired hope the rancor that had gripped the nation since the election would be overcome.
If anything, within months the nation was even more divided. Ultra-liberals hinted that Bush may have known about the planned attacks and did nothing to stop them to have an excuse to invade Iraq (some even queried if Bush might have planted explosives in the tower). Ultra-conservatives charged liberals with hoping America would lose the war and with seeing each American death as an opportunity to gain votes during the next election.
In time, such conservatives transformed the war into a crusade for American values and Christian hegemony. Liberals came to see the singing of “God Bless America” or even its use to end a speech as just so much jingoism. Some even charged Christians with being so provincial they thought God was interested only in America and would exclude other nations from his benevolence.
With all the fuss over God Bless America, I suppose we ought to ask if God has blessed the nation since 9/11. No amount of evidence will convince the atheist or agnostic but surely most Christians will agree he has.
We are blessed with a remarkable political freedom. Prior to 9/11, the press pilloried President Bush. After 9/11, the press pilloried President Bush. No journalist has been imprisoned for voicing negative opinions of the former President, despite the claims of some that the Patriot Act would fill the prisons with journalists, political science professors, and library patrons.
We have been blessed with remarkable religious freedom. I may, if I should so choose, stand on any street corner in American and distribute copies of the Quran. Try passing out New Testaments on a corner in Tehran or Damascus.
As tough as the times are, it’s hard to deny God’s blessing on the nation. Some 9% of us are unemployed, yet many of the jobless are looking for work online and eagerly hoping to be contacted on their smart phones. We are involved in two wars yet experiencing none of the shortages our parents or grandparents recall from WWII.
As the President has said, America is a stronger nation since 9/11. But not in every way. There remain some blessings we need.
· We need to be blessed with insight into our need for God. We need to discover we are not self-sufficient, that a trusting relationship with God is a greater treasure than a cache of the newest electronics or gold coins in the safe.
· We need to be blessed with Christians whose faith is demonstrated in their lives as well as their words. Two thousand years ago, a small band of Christians lived with such joy and integrity before a watching world that they turned that world upside down. Statistically we Christians may be a minority, but statistics don’t tell the whole story when God blesses his people.
· We need to be blessed with a vision that keeps us going in the tough times. Such a common vision will unite Christians though they may not share the same political affiliation, the same skin color, the same educational background, or the same social class.
This weekend has reminded us that the nation is still feeling the wound of that Tuesday morning ten years ago. We need God-blessed people to help heal those wounds.
So, may we continue to sincerely pray “God Bless America.”
