The Written Word
for September 16, 2001

The terrible events of September 11, 2001 place Christians, of which I am one, in a terrible dilemma.

First, how could the God we believe in permit this terrible thing to happen? The error here, I think, is supposing that God sits on high, as some sort of puppeteer, manipulating people and events on Earth. I don’t for a moment deny that there may be a Holy plan, that there can be and often is divine intervention. I certainly would be the last to deny the power of prayer. This divine power, exercised as it undoubtedly is, does not derogate from the fact that God put us here as people of free will. Our challenge is not to avoid death, however that may come and however unjust it may be, but to so act as to achieve God’s grace.

Second, whose God’s involved here? Millions of people across the United States, Canada, Europe and elsewhere prayed to their God in memorial services. Yet Osuma bin Laden and others like him not only pray to God for guidance but assure young men that if they die, in suicide, killing the American Satan that they will go straight to heaven to be personally welcomed by Allah. How do we square this circle?

The answer is that God’s church and man’s corporate churches are different things entirely. God didn’t authorize the Inquisition – the Corporate Church alleged he did. God is not responsible when Man, in his name, does terrible things.

Thirdly, how do we as Christians support violence, even to end violence?

There are I think two concepts at play here. There is the larger, overwhelming concept that we must live in peace. We must, as Christians, love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. But there is what I might call the day to day rule, namely that we are entitled to protect ourselves. In my reading of Christ’s words nowhere do I hear him saying that free peoples must abjectly surrender to the horrors of terrorism. It’s probably impertinent of us to cloak ourselves in our Christianity as we fight it – though clearly we’re entitled to ask His help. But just as we deal with criminals in the individual, Society is entitled to deal with them when they take larger forms.

In dealing with these dilemmas, my Christianity, I admit, takes me to the New Testament rather than the Old. I mean no disrespect, but one can find lots of evidence to support all manner of violent revenge in the Old Testament and human ability to interpret in a self serving manner being what it was, there will be no difficulty in justifying whatever we want to do. In looking at the teachings of Jesus, I think we find better answers because we clearly must cloak our actions with respect for his laws. I take his teachings to be that if we love our neighbour that includes the right to protect him – and ourselves - from evil.

Any sort of exercise like this requires a certain amount of self justification and indeed cherry picking of helpful passages in the Bible. I, like everyone else, do this because I know of no other way. But when all else fails, I go to my tummy. My father always told me, do what your tummy tells you to do which is another way of saying that the sum and total of your goodness, your conscience if you will, will let you know what is right and what is wrong.

Only God Himself knows if your tummy is giving you good intelligence but I would argue that this is probably the way God lets you know the difference between right and wrong. Just as, when as a kid you stole candy from a store your tummy told you it was wrong, I think that is the most reliable litmus we have.

What happened on September 11, 2001 was a monstrous act that must be both punished and deterred. My tummy tells me God agrees.