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A Resource by Mark D. Roberts |
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9/11 and Faith:
Some Reflections
by Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts
Copyright © 2006 by Mark D. Roberts
Note: You may download this resource at no cost, for personal use or for use in a Christian ministry, as long as you are not publishing it for sale. All I ask is that you give credit where credit is due. For all other uses, please contact me at mark@markdroberts.com . Thank you.
9/11 and Faith: A Prayer on the Fifth Anniversary of 9/11 
Part 1 of the series: 9/11 and Faith: Some Reflections 
Posted for September 11, 2006
Today, as you know, is the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America. As I've been thinking about what happened five years ago and the impact on our lives, it seemed good to me to write a short series I'm calling 9/11 and Faith: Some Reflections.
As I finished writing what would have been today's post, I felt unsettled about what I had done. It's not that I didn't like my ideas. But, somehow, it just didn't seem right for me to put up such an analytical piece on anniversary of such a profound tragedy. I'm not criticizing others who offer up their thoughts on this occasion. It just wasn't quite right for me to do so. |
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An ironic and moving picture of the 9/11 tragedy in New York
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Therefore I've delayed putting up today's post until tomorrow. What I want to offer instead is a prayer. Perhaps, as you read it, you'll be able to pray along with me.
A Prayer on the Fifth Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks
Gracious and Merciful God,
As I remember what happened five years ago today, my heart is still heavy with grief. I recall the thousands of people who died in the 9/11 attacks. I think about their loved ones, families and friends who have experienced untold sadness during the last five years, and who will, no doubt, feel an extra measure of anguish today. So I begin this prayer, dear Lord, by asking You to comfort those who mourn today. Draw them near to You and grant them Your peace.
Peace . . . before that tragic day five years ago, it seemed as if peace were in our grasp in an unprecedented way. The Cold War was over. And, though there were places of violence and brutality in the world, the flow of history seemed to be in the direction of growing and lasting peace. But then those planes crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the ground of Pennsylvania, and the hope of peace seemed to explode along with them. Now we were clearly at war, a different kind of war than ever before, a war where the victims were innocent bystanders rather than official warriors. It was scary, and we felt terror.
Since that fateful day so much has happened in our nation and world: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Anthrax scares; increased security measures; bombings in Indonesia, Jakarta, Bali, London, Madrid, and elsewhere; a war between Israel and Hezbollah; seemingly endless terrorist attacks in Iraq, and so on, and so on. Sometimes it seems as if our world is being wrenched apart by violence and hatred. And sometimes it seems as if our own hearts are being caught in the web of these emotions. With enemies so terrifying and vicious, it's easy to give in to hatred.
And so I pray for myself, Lord, and my fellow Americans, and all who seek to oppose the way of violence, that in our effort to secure peace and justice, we might not let our hearts be corrupted by darkness. May Your truth keep us on the right track. May Your love protect us. May Your forgiveness cleanse us.
I pray today that You will bring down all in this world who seek to dominate through terror. Squelch their evil plots. Turn their swords into plowshares. And, though it seems almost beyond hope to pray it, I would ask You to transform the hearts of those who seek to augment their power through bloodshed and fear. Only You can do this, Lord. But You can do it.
Grant Your wisdom, all-knowing God, to those in this world who seek to end the threat of terror. Guide the leaders of our nation and other nations. Show them what they would not be able to see on their own. Give them a commitment to truth and a passion for genuine peace. May they seek, not only to bring an end to hostilities, but also to forge a world of justice for all people. Help them to weigh partisan and national interests in the balance of Your kingdom.
Today I want to pray for all who find themselves in harm's way, knowing that, in one sense, no one is completely free from the threat of violence. But I pray especially for the men and women in our armed forces and in law enforcement, that You would protect and guide them. Grant special grace to those who are separated from their families, and to these families as they pray for their loved ones. I ask for Your protection for innocent men, women, and children in Iraq, Israel, and elsewhere, who daily face the threat of bombings.
Thank You, gracious God, for the safety and security we enjoy in our nation even in the midst of such uncertain and scary times. Yet, may we remember that You alone are our true fortress, our solid rock, our eternal stronghold. May we live each day putting our lives in Your hands, living with You and for Your purposes.
O Lord, the time will come when Your peace will engulf our world. That is our hope, and we claim it with confidence in You. Until that day, we ask for a foretaste of the peace of the future. Even as we pray for Your kingdom to come, we ask also that Your will be done on earth today, as in heaven. Let mercy triumph over vengeance, justice over wrong, love over hatred. May we taste Your peace as an appetizer for the future.
On this day of sad remembrance, as on every day, may we seek first Your kingdom and Your righteousness. Work Your will in us and through us, for Your glory.
In Jesus's name, Amen!
Has 9/11 Made a Difference in Our Faith?
Part 2 of the series: 9/11 and Christian Faith
Posted for Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Five years ago yesterday the United States was rocked by the unthinkable. Terrorists hit us in the heart, shattering our icons and killing thousands of our innocent citizens. We were stunned. We were heartsick. We were outraged. We were, indeed, terrorized. And, for a while, we were also more interested in God. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, there were prayer meetings throughout the land. Church attendance was up. And religious leaders, if they weren't blaming American immorality for the attacks, were predicting an era of spiritual renewal. Tragedy and death have a way of turning our hearts toward God.
At least for a while. Maybe even a very short while. The Barna Group has recently released the results of an extensive survey of American faith pre-9/11 and five years afterwards. The bottom line? Almost nothing has changed. Americans still believe more or less the same things and do more or less the same things when it comes to religion. The "intense surge in religious activity and expression in the weeks immediately following 9/11" has led to no significant or lasting result, according to the Barna Group. |
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Honestly, though I find this disappointing, it doesn't really surprise me much. I've spent a good chunk of my pastoral life interacting with people in crisis. Time and again I've seen how a crisis can intensify someone's interest in God, yet not make any long term difference in that person's faith or religious life.
For example, I remember a couple who came to my church when they were going through a crisis in their marriage. For several months they were faithful in worship. They met with me in private. They talked about the need for more regular involvement in Christian community. But, when the problems in their marriage subsided, they soon drifted away from the church. Then, about five years later, they were back. Why? Because the husband had a serious heart problem, and was going in for surgery. Once again, this couple seemed genuinely interested in God and eager to be more involved in the church. And, once again, after the surgery was successful and the man's recovery completed, they fell back into their usual pattern of non-involvement.
Every now and then things are different. Sometimes crises do open people's hearts to God and they have a life-changing encounter with His grace. Chuck Colson is perhaps the poster-child of this type of experience, as his post-Watergate legal troubles led him to a profound commitment to Jesus Christ and a life of Christian service. But all too often the emotions that lead people to God for a while die out, leaving them no different than they were prior to their crisis. This, it seems, is what happened to most people who were once "into God" because of the events of 9/11.
It would be easy to blame the church for the lack of substantive change in people's lives. David Kinnaman, Strategic Leader of the Barna Group, does this very thing. He says:
Most leaders – religious and otherwise – were completely caught off guard in 2001. Without intentional planning, most churches were satisfied merely to provide a safe haven for people to come together and seek comfort, but few congregations lead [sic] people to a serious and prolonged period of self-reflection and personal change. However, with significant disasters like hurricane Katrina and the threat of future terrorist attacks, there is no excuse for being unprepared the ‘next’ time.
Preparedness is more than having a sermon handy in the event of catastrophe. It also relates to pragmatic planning. What if an emergency strikes your community? Do you have a plan of action to mobilize the believers in your church? Do you have the necessary insurance to protect your organization and facilities? Is there a clear strategy for helping people focus their faith questions and explorations – not merely to achieve short-term relief and regain emotional equilibrium – but to point them toward a process of deeper life transformation? The research underscores how elusive transformation is in people’s lives. Americans are resilient people, but they are also stubborn and easily distracted . . . . The limited effect of 9/11 is a testament to these characteristics. The job of spiritual leaders is not just to help people cope with tragedy but to break through their spiritual hard-headedness and orient them towards God’s deeper purposes for their life.
Kinnaman's throws a lot of stuff into this critical stew, mixing pragmatic planning, necessary insurance, and helping people experience deeper life transformation. I'm not concerned primarily with the practical matters here, though I do wonder how much time and effort churches should spend planning for events that are unlikely except in hindsight. I am much more interested in the spiritual issues Kinnaman raises. Let me highlight these by quoting once again:
• [F]ew congregations lead [sic] people to a serious and prolonged period of self-reflection and personal change.
• Is there a clear strategy for helping people focus their faith questions and explorations – not merely to achieve short-term relief and regain emotional equilibrium – but to point them toward a process of deeper life transformation?
• The job of spiritual leaders is not just to help people cope with tragedy but to break through their spiritual hard-headedness and orient them towards God’s deeper purposes for their life.
These are crucial concerns, I believe. I'm grateful to the Barna Group and David Kinnaman for raising them. In my next post I will address them specifically.
The Lack of 9/11 Impact on Faith: Why?
Part 3 of the series: 9/11 and Christian Faith
Posted for Wednesday, September 13, 2006
In my last post I summarized the results of a Barna Group survey. It found that the tragedy of 9/11, though leading to an immediate surge in religious activity by Americans, had no lasting impact of our faith or religious practice. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we cared a whole lot more about God. But by the time the smoke stopped billowing from the World Trade Center site, we returned to the religious beliefs and practices we had had before 9/11/2001.
David Kinnaman, Strategic Leader of the Barna group, faults the church for this lack of transformation. "Few congregations," he says, "led people to a serious and prolonged period of self-reflection and personal change." We did not take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the 9/11 tragedy, according to Kinnaman, partly because we were unprepared to help people move beyond the need for temporary relief and comfort.
I'm quite sure Kinnaman is right in many ways. I'll add a personal mea culpa. For a couple weeks during September 2001, attendance in my church was significantly up. Yet relatively few of these earnest visitors kept coming back. It seems likely that they returned to "normal" by October, and that meant rare church attendance at best. |
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You can see a cross in the midst of the rubble of the
World Trade Center destruction.
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I must wonder, however, exactly what Kinnaman has in mind for the church in its response to tragedies like 9/11. He asks:
Is there a clear strategy for helping people focus their faith questions and explorations – not merely to achieve short-term relief and regain emotional equilibrium – but to point them toward a process of deeper life transformation?
This is a good question. But it's a whole lot easier to ask than to answer. Some of what churches do in response to crises I find unacceptable. For example, it would have been easy to play upon and exacerbate people's fears after 9/11. I could have said something like, "Now that we live in a new era of terror, none of us knows when we might die. Since you can't be sure that the building in which you work won't be blown up, you had better make sure you've made your peace with God." This approach reminds me of what I heard from apocalyptic preachers when I was a teenager, "Jesus might come back tomorrow. Are you ready to meet him?" In many cases this approach got certain people to become Christians. Yet it also turned off a whole lot of other people, who found this approach emotionalistic and manipulative.
I doesn't seem that Kinnaman would recommend something like what I'm criticizing here. But I wonder what he envisions. I believe that it is the task of the church to be continually pointing people "toward a process of deeper life transformation." We should have a strategy for doing this, not just in times of crisis, but all the time. When something terrible happens, for the most part we engage in business as usual, though with a particular distinctiveness. Perhaps what the Barna study points out is the failure of the church to foster personal and cultural transformation in general, not merely in response to 9/11.
As I think of what my church did in the aftermath of 9/11, I'm proud of our adaptations in worship, our special prayers and services, our efforts to offer support and comfort to those who were terrorized. What we did not do, and might well have done, was to do some extra things in response to people's questions and fears. For example, we might have sponsored some midweek lectures for the community on questions such as: What is the nature of evil? Why does God allow terrible things to happen? Should Christians turn the other cheek when it comes to terrorism? I don't think we worked effectively enough to address the questions people were asking at that time.
One of Kinnaman's suggestions for the church runs this way:
The job of spiritual leaders is not just to help people cope with tragedy but to break through their spiritual hard-headedness and orient them towards God’s deeper purposes for their life.
I have mixed feelings about this statement. I think it's moving in the right direction. But I also think it makes a major mistake. Tomorrow I'll explain what I mean.
Who Can Break Through Spiritual Hard-Headedness?
Part 4 of the series: 9/11 and Christian Faith
Posted for Thursday, September 14, 2006
So far in this series I've been considering the implications of a Barna Group survey that found that 9/11 had almost no impact on the faith and religious life of Americans. David Kinnaman, Strategic Leader of the Barna Group, faults the church for this sad situation, and I've agreed with Kinnaman to a point. I ended yesterday's post by quoting this part of his critique:
The job of spiritual leaders is not just to help people cope with tragedy but to break through their spiritual hard-headedness and orient them towards God’s deeper purposes for their life.
As I said previously, I have mixed feelings about this statement. It think it is partly right, but also significantly wrong.
First, if Kinnaman had said only the following, I would completely agree with him:
The job of spiritual leaders is not just to help people cope with tragedy but to . . . orient them towards God’s deeper purposes for their life.
One of the chief and blessed parts of my job as a pastor is to do exactly this: to help people make sense of the difficult things in their lives and to help them find God's presence and grace through these difficult things. So, if I were a Baptist, I'd give Kinnaman a big "Amen!" for this part of his suggestion. Of course, since I'm a Presbyterian, I'll say instead that I strongly agree with Kinnaman.
Yet I do not agree that it is the job of spiritual leaders "to break through [people's] hard-headedness." For one thing, I don't even believe this is possible, unless a spiritual leader resorts to manipulation, brainwashing, or some other unsavory practice. But even if a spiritual leader has the power to break through people's hard-headedness, this is something we ought not to do. Not only does it run the risk of violating people's trust, but also it puts us in the place of God.
Scripture is clear that breaking through people's defenses is the job of the Holy Spirit. To be sure, the Spirit can use people in this process. King David, for example, was unwilling to deal with his sin relative to Bathsheba until Nathan the prophet confronted him. But it would be a mistake to see the breaking-through as something Nathan accomplished through cleverness or boldness. Rather, the Holy Spirit worked through Nathan to touch the well-guarded heart of David.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says this about the Holy Spirit, here referred to as the Advocate (or in other translations, Comforter, Counselor):
I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment (John 16:7-8).
The Greek verb translated here as "prove . . . wrong" is elencho. It means to rebuke, reproach, or convict." Jesus's point is that the Advocate/Holy Spirit is the One who will help the world see where it has gone wrong. Moreover, the Spirit will teach people what is true (John 14:26).
If I, as a pastor, attempt to "break through people's hard-headedness," then I am trying to do that which the Spirit alone is supposed to do. Now I will confess that I sometimes give it the ol' college try. I do try to break through people's defenses, not with emotionalism, but with rational persuasion. I have been known to try and pummel people into submission with logic. Yet I have discovered that this never works.
How can a pastor, or how can a church, orient people towards God's deeper purposes for their lives without taking on the Spirit role of breaking through their defenses? I would offer two suggestions among many options.
| First, we speak the truth as clearly, honestly, and, indeed, persuasively as we can. We offer this to people, yet without forcing it upon them. Jesus's Parable of the Sower is most instructive here. We sow God's truth broadly and generously, yet without pounding it into the hard soil. Often our efforts will be in vain, either because the seeds of truth will not sprout at all, or because they will only for a short time. In the aftermath of 9/11, lots of seeds seemed to be growing. But most of them withered away or were choked by the cares of this world. I would admit that, as a preacher, it's sometimes hard to be a faithful sower when the results aren't what I would like. In these times I'm tempted to be a head-breaker. But my job is to be a faithful sower, trusting the results to the Spirit of God. |
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Vincent Van Gogh, Sower with the Setting Sun, 1888 |
Second, in addition to sowing seeds, we can also demonstrate through our lives the benefits of letting those seeds grow in our lives. I've found that one of the most powerful "sermons" one can preach is that of a life reflecting God's presence and grace. I've seen many hard-headed people receive the gospel, not only because they heard the truth, but especially because they experienced the truth in the lives of Christians.
What I've just written leaves me with a couple of questions I'll begin to address tomorrow:
1. What truth ought Christian leaders to share with people so that the tragedy of 9/11 might "orient them towards God’s deeper purposes for their life"?
2. What sort of living might open people's heads and hearts to this truth?
Truth That Makes a Difference
Part 5 of the series: 9/11 and Christian Faith
Posted for Friday, September 15, 2006
So far in this series I've noted the data that suggests that 9/11 did not have a significant impact on the faith of Americans, apart from a short-lived concern in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist bombings. I've also examined ways in which the church has been deficient, failing to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by 9/11. I ended my last post by asking:
1. What truth ought Christian leaders to share with people so that the tragedy of 9/11 might "orient them towards God’s deeper purposes for their life"?
2. What sort of living might open people's heads and hearts to this truth?
In today's post I'll begin to suggest some answers to the first question. I'll get to the second question in a few days.
In general, preachers and other Christian communicators would do well to begin with the questions and concerns that are burning in people's hearts. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, these included:
Why did this happen?
Why did God let this happen?
Every time we're faced with something terrible, whether a terrorist attack, a destructive hurricane, or a personal challenge like cancer, we tend to ask the "Why?" questions. We're looking for meaning, for something that makes sense of what we find so difficult to understand, for a way to integrate tragedy redemptively into our lives. And, often, we're wondering what difference God makes, or whether there is even a God to make a difference. These are some of life's most important and difficult questions. If we speak to them directly, then, of necessity, we'll be orienting people towards God's deeper purposes for their lives. |
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The "cross" found in the rubble of the World Trade Center prominently displayed during the clean up effort. |
Because these questions are asked so urgently when terrible things happen, and because they seem to imply that something is deficient about God, Christians often rush in with quick and simple answers. "God let this happen to teach us a lesson," is one example. Now this is surely true, but its superficiality leaves much to be desired. This listen-teaching God can seem like some cruel tyrant rather than a gracious sovereign. You may recall that shortly after 9/11, several headling-grabbing Christian leaders answered the "Why?" question by explaining that God was judging America for a variety of sins, largely those identified by the Christian right as most egregious (homosexuality, abortion, etc.). Now I happen to believe that God can and might judge America for our corporate sins. But, if we pay attention to Scripture, God's judgment doesn't come so anonymously and randomly. (Given that that 9/11 attacks were upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it would have made more sense to argue that God was judging America's materialism and militarism. I'm not suggesting this, mind you. I'm only noting that it would have made more sense than what certain religious leaders had proclaimed.)
I won't attempt to answer the question of why God let's bad things happen in this blog post. I have written on this before, especially in the days following the devastating tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people in late 2004. You can find my ruminations in my series called: All Things New. What I will say here is that an adequate answer to the "Why?" question gets to the very heart of Christian theology, including: the nature of creation, the nature of evil, God's purposes for the world, the mission of Jesus Christ, and the mission of God's people in the world.
To be sure, the question of why God lets horrible things happen is one of the toughest in all of Christian theology. Even when this question is answered well, we're still left with a sense of unsettledness, a yearning that isn't fully satisfied. This yearning, I would contend, is a reflection of who we are as God's creatures. Deep down we know that something is wrong with life, and the explanations for this wrongness only partly satisfy us. They do not satisfy our profound desire for life to be fully good.
This unquenched desire points to other sorts of questions, like:
Does evil exist?
Why does evil exist?
What is the nature of evil?
How can evil be defeated?
In my next post in this series I'll touch upon these questions.
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