Michigan Christians for Life

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September 11, 2001, A Christian view.
By Harvey Dean

Editors note:

If you are like me, over the past weeks your thoughts returned again and again to the events of 9/11 as you tried to comprehend them, as you tried to bring some coherence out of them.

As a believing Christian, I know that God intervenes in history. Scripture assures us that not a sparrow falls without God noticing it. So it is impossible for me to believe that God did not anticipate the World Trade Center disaster prior to its happening. Some evangelical pastors have rationalized that horror by saying that God has lifted His hand of protection from us. A few of those same preachers intimated that God visited His wrath upon a sinful America. When they did so, a firestorm of criticism threatened to consume them, and they quietly beat a retreat.

As Christians, we are constantly striving to discern the will of God, both for our individual actions and also for our corporate actions, as a nation and as a people. Should we reject the analysis of the Evangelical preachers? If so, what better explanation is there? Should we accept the judgment of the jingoists who would cast us in the role of avenging angels and the terrorists in the role of the devil incarnate? I actually heard one commentator claim on the tube that we are the people of life and the terrorists are the people of death. Would that it were so.

During these past weeks, Christians have been loathe to point out that as a people we have killed over 40 million innocent babies in the past 28 years, with the full complicity of our federal government. A Planned Parenthood spokesman recently estimated that 43% of all American women will have at least one abortion during their lives. If that sorry record does not justify a conclusion that we have been an evil people, what does? Does tampering with the very nature of man, seeking to establish a superman in a scientific laboratory, or seeking to clone babies who will then be cannibalized for their body parts do the trick? Or what about throwing ourselves into a mindless obsession with sex, evidenced by there being over 300 pornographic sites on the internet. Does that justify our being awarded that appellation, "an evil country"?

In the September 23rd issue of the National Catholic Register, the editor, who has a track record of wise and insightful analyses, counseled Catholics to emphasize patriotism in these trying days. He went on to discourage us from saying anything condemnatory about our society. Tome, his RX seems to be precisely what we do not need.

One can scarcely avoid being thrilled by the outpouring of religious fervor that followed the events of 9/11. The prayers spoken at the National Day of Prayer which took place on September 24th moved and consoled all of us. The one that touched my heart to its core was spoken by a Protestant pastor, immediately before President Bush spoke. It is found in 2nd Chronicles, Chapter 7, verse 14, and reads:

"If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and forgive their sin, and heal their land."

An element largely missing from the torrent of American public prayers which have recently stormed heaven has been any acknowledgment that we, as a people, need to repent. That seems to me to be an act of arrogance, not humility. Such prayers, I fear, will be unavailing.

On September 25th, tow tornados gathered over Washington, D.C., a most unusual event. No one had heard of a tornado passing through that city for nearly 200 years. At one point the two tornados lifted, merged, hovered over the U.S. capitol, and then moved on to wreak death and devastation elsewhere in the city. What powerful symbolism!

A call to repentance does not in any way imply a resort to pacifism. We are truly in a war. The terrorists intend to stay their course. Our government has not only the right but the duty to exercise self-defense in legitimate ways. Such an exercise clearly falls within the ambit of the just-war theory. Moreover, the need for such action will continue well into the foreseeable future.

Nonetheless, the dismal record of the past century has shown us that man's reliance on his resources alone is futile. Our hope still is in God alone. It will ever be so.