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Some Personal Thoughts On 9-11 (with Jesus and Rev. King in Mind)
By Administrator | July 19, 2007
by Rev. Scott Elliott (the views below are mine and not necessarily those of my church or its members)
On September 11, 2001 a tremendous tragedy befell this nation. A tragedy caused by the violence of men full of hate and fury and a misguided sense of what God called them to do with their lives and how to treat others. As with all attacks on nations, innocent people died and families have wept – and still weep– over loved ones dead and missing, hurt and wounded. God has wept, still weeps and will continue to weep. The weeping will continue for years to come.
Looking back even now over the years we can see God’s acts in the 9-11 tragedy, not in the evil acts of violence that caused so much death and destruction, but in the heroic acts of firefighters, law enforcement personnel, and in the compassionate acts of New Yorkers and Americans and nations everywhere as prayers and care poured in for survivors, and grief was shared around the world. God is in the hands of such loving acts. God is in all love, so make no mistake about it, as a loving God, God was/is not in the violence wrought on this nation on 9-11.
Indeed, God is never in violence. There were two possible ways for our nation to respond to the violence of 9-11.1 One, was that our nation could have chosen to respond with violence and hate equal to or greater than that of the men who flew those planes into the Trade Center and the Pentagon. We should have been very wary of this answer. We should have considered the fact that God would not be in the hands of such violence. Jesus taught us to love our enemies, which surely cannot mean attack them. Like it or not, believe it or not, God calls us to love our enemies. We ignore that call at our peril.
Even if you do not believe in God, consider that throughout history when violence is used in response to violence (to quote Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King) “it merely creates new and more complicated [problems].”2 “Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”3 Iraq, though unconnected to the 9-11 attacks when they occurred, is now forever connected with them as we lashed out in violence creating new and more complicated trouble.
Simply put, violence was not the right answer to the 9-11 attacks.
The answer was/is the choice found in the motto of America found on the coins in your pocket and purses: “In God we trust.” I know that in many homes and places of worship prayers have gone to God, trusting that God would provide answers to 9-11. I cannot presume to speak for Jewish and Muslim and other religious Americans, but for Christians (like me) the God we trust is the One experienced through Jesus. Like this nation Jesus trusted God. He lived in a country occupied by Roman enemies, and for all the magnificent powers that Jesus is reported to have had, not once did he respond to violence by the Romans with violence. Even as he was being captured by the armed stooges of Rome, Jesus did not respond with the powers of force at his disposal. He did not call down legions of angels or allow any violence in response to his arrest;4 and neither did God respond with violence to the violence inflicted upon Jesus as he was hauled away, tortured and crucified. Rather the Divine responses in Jesus’ passion story and at the cross were victories through non-violence and through Love for the world and evil-doers by both God and Jesus. As our nation’s leaders still continue to rattle sabers, listen (as Rev. Dr. King) advised, “[t]hrough the vistas of time a voice . . . cries out to every potential Peter, ‘Put up your sword.’”5 That voice is the voice of the God we trust.
If it is truly “In God we trust,” then we must heed Jesus’ command and put up our swords and love our enemies.6 We must respond to the 9-11 attacks as Jesus responded to Rome’s violence against his country and against himself. We must respond with non-violence. This is no easy task. “Probably no admonition of Jesus has been more difficult to follow than the command to ‘love your enemies.’ Some men have sincerely felt that its actual practice is not possible . . . [but] the command to love one’s enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival.” 7
Understand that God is not asking us to do nothing, God called – and continues to call– us to resist these attacks with non-violence.
You read that right.
Non-violence means resisting. And it “is not a method for cowards.”8 We must be aggressive in calling on the world to oppose such conduct, to not harbor or support those who wreak such havoc on us or any people, and if necessary we must impose humane sanctions on those who perpetrate, aid and abet violence on nations and peoples.
We must not, however, demonize or humiliate our opponents. Jesus, you may recall, healed the guard’s ear that Peter cut off in violence with his sword.9 Consequently our non-violent resistence must be against the “forces of evil rather than against persons.” The acts of the hijackers were wrong and evil, but there is no denying that hijackers and their co-conspirators are humans and as such we should not have sought to attack them or their supporters (imagined or otherwise). Rather we needed then, and we need now, to attack the evil that causes terrorists to act. If we do not defeat the evil cause of their grave misdeeds, more and more evil will stem from that undefeated source of evil. “[T]he universe is on the side of justice”10 and justice demands that source of evil be defeated. This can only be done through non-violence – and at the center of non-violence is love. And I do not believe that it is a coincidence that God is at the center of our nation’s motto: “In God we trust.” God is love, and so it is love that we must trust. Violence in response to violence is not trusting in God, it has no love in it. Again, I ask you to listen to Rev. Dr. King: “[t]hrough the vistas of time a voice . . . cries out to every potential Peter, ‘Put up your sword.’”11 That voice is the voice of the God we trust.
ENDNOTES
1. King, Martin Luther, “Nonviolence and Racial Justice”Sources of Christian Theology in America, eds Mark Toulouse, James Duke, Nashville: Abingdon Press (1999), 482.
2. Ibid., 483.
3. King, Martin Luther, I Have a Dream: The Quotations of Martin Luther King, ed. Lotte Hoskins, New York: Grosset & Dunlap (1968), 147.
4.Matthew 26:50-56.
5.Ibid.
6.Luke 6:27
7.King, Martin Luther, Strength to Love, New York: Harper & Row, (1959), 34.
8.King, “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” 483.
9. Luke 22:49-51.
10.King , “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” 484.
11. Ibid.
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