25 past 9/11
I grew up during the end of history. When I was in kindy the Berlin Wall fell (no duck and cover drills for me). And then the world blissfully chugged along for more than a decade. But when I was in year 12 some planes flew into some buildings and we’ve been living the aftermath for a quarter century.
I remember that three days later, a memorial service was held at Washington National Cathedral. Congress was there. George W Bush spoke. I watched it live on dial up internet.
He began beautifully: “We are here in the middle hour of our grief.” Which was true.
Then, a few paragraphs later, he said America’s responsibility was clear: “to answer these attacks and to rid the world of evil.”
And I can remember hearing that and thinking, “ohhh… that’s going to cause some problems.” I mean, I got it: nearly 3,000 people had been murdered on his watch as President. What is the answer to something like that? Surely, it’s to take big swings back.
But then another man spoke at that service. Nathan Baxter, the dean of the cathedral. He prayed that in responding to evil, America might “not become the evil we deplore”.
Twenty-five years on, that sentence has aged well. Evil is not a substance located exclusively in other people. There are evil acts. There are people who must be stopped. Governments really do have a responsibility to protect the innocent and punish wrongdoing.
But Christianity will not allow us the slapdash luxury of dividing humanity into the goodies and the baddies. The theologian Miroslav Volf, who knew something about violence and persecution firsthand, once wrote that forgiveness fails when “I exclude the enemy from the community of humans, and I exclude myself from the community of sinners”.
That is exactly what people do when we are frightened. We convince ourselves that they are monsters and we are righteous. The Bible is much less flattering. John writes in his first letter:
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves.”
Which makes Christianity both harder and more hopeful than “rid the world of evil”. Harder, because it tells me the line between good and evil does not run between nations or political tribes. It runs through my own heart. But bore hopeful, because Jesus did not come to destroy the evil people. he came to save them.
At the cross, Jesus was executed between criminals and in the place of Barabbas, a man imprisoned for insurrection and murder. The innocent king died the terrorist’s death.
Which means that, twenty-five years after 9/11, Christians can still pursue justice without pretending we are pure. We can oppose evil without dehumanising our enemies. We can refuse the alluring idea that if only the right people were destroyed, righteousness would finally prevail.
And we can pray, as Nathan Baxter prayed three days after the towers fell, that in confronting what we deplore, we do not become it.
grace and peace,
Steve