September 11 was a day when it seemed as if everyone in the world was either in New York or trying to reach someone there. On that day, checking your e-mail became a matter of life and death for many. By 8:45 AM on that day Ron Bruno was sitting in his Manhattan apartment, already dreading the day ahead, stressful and complex, as Manhattan days tend to be. By 8:55 AM the first of many questions about Bruno’s well being arrived in his email inbox. It was from cousin Bev in the New Jersey suburbs. “How far are you from there? Are you at work? Please tell me you are safe.” Bruno started an irritated response about the great divide between midtown, where he lived, and downtown, where the twin towers were. He then erased it and tried again, “I’m fine. Both the apartment and my office are far from the WTC, so no worries. How are you?”
Bruno’s regular band of far-flung correspondents, such as cousin Remo in southern Italy, made up the first wave of messages. On September 11 all he could write in response to dozens of inquiries was a simple “yes” and “hmmm.” By the next day Bruno began hearing from people at an even greater relational distance, and for once he was not irritated. Email was Bruno’s shield against events, protecting his family and friends from worry, and himself from total comprehension of the tragic events ten kilometers away.
After a break to collect some emergency cash, he returned home to another wave of emails, this time from less frequent correspondents: a girl he used to tease in eighth-grade algebra, high school friends he hadn’t seen since the last reunion, professional colleagues. Many of these live far away and weren’t sure if he was even in Manhattan after all these years. Oddly enough, Bruno found catharsis with these email acquaintances, more than with those closer to his life, in town or on the phone.
Email proved to be much more therapeutic than the phone. The typical phone conversation on September 11 was punctuated by long periods of silence and repeated musings along the line of “I can’t believe this is happening.” It was too soon to talk things through. Emails, on the other hand, gave opportunity for reflection on the complexity of Bruno’s sadness and uncertainty. His keystrokes were often hurried, but the words kept pouring out and they helped. After September 11, many of these correspondents would drop out of his email inbox for months or even years, but at the crucial moment they were with him, and that was all that mattered.
As our experience with email teaches us, writing is a marvelous way to develop and maintain relationships even though we may not be physically together. And social scientists have noticed an interesting feature of email. People somehow feel safer with email than they do with any other type of communication. They are willing to say things that they would never put in a formal letter or say to someone’s face. So email has become a major factor in relationships over the last ten years or so.
In the case of Ron Bruno, email was a soothing way to process that which could not be understood or even imagined. Where phone calls offered little solace, emails, even with people he hardly knew, provided an outlet for his feelings and a strong sense of connection to the wider universe, one he probably would not have gotten from those in his immediate circle around New York.
For me, email provides a strong analogy to the way prayer has functioned through the centuries. Prayer helps one to find a center in the midst of the normal chaos of contemporary life, and even more so in times of great tragedy, such as September 11. There comes a strong sense that we are not alone, that no matter what takes place, there is an ultimate purpose to it all, that out there is One who cares deeply about us and whose presence can be felt from time to time.
But how do you have a serious relationship with someone you cannot see, hear or touch? How do you have a relationship with someone who is not physically there? I have wrestled with this concept for many years and the events of September 11 didn’t make it any easier.
A couple of decades ago I observed a social phenomenon that helped me make some sense of these questions. The movie Titanic earned twice as much money from theater admissions as any other movie of all time. What was the reason for this “titanic” excitement? One of the main reasons was that millions of teen-age girls in North America became smitten with the handsome young male lead, Leonardo DiCaprio. Many went back to see the movie several times, some claimed to have seen it over forty times! What were they doing? They were developing a relationship with someone they couldn’t see, hear, or touch!
“Wait a minute!” you may be thinking. “Weren’t they seeing and hearing him in the movie?” Yes, in a sense they were. But watching a movie is not quite the same as meeting Leonardo in person. The movie was only a witness to the reality that is Leonardo. But how do you know Leonardo DiCaprio even exists if you’ve never met him, heard him, or touched him? Well, for starters, the movies he has made testify to his existence. Millions of people testify to his existence. You hear about him on radio or TV, you read about him in magazines and newspapers. No one doubts his existence, even though few have met him.
The existence of God is secure on a similar basis. Where millions will testify to the existence of Leonardo DiCaprio and the influence he may have had in their lives, billions over the centuries have testified to the existence of God, including the testimonies found in sacred texts. The craze over Leonardo DiCaprio testifies how you can have a real relationship with someone you cannot see, hear or touch. You can have a relationship with Leo if you spend time with the various witnesses about his person. You can read about him, talk to people who know him, and sample his own testimony about himself on TV, radio, or in a magazine. For many young women at one point, their relationship with Leonardo was the most significant thing that had ever happened to them, even though they had never met him in person.
So it is with God. If you seeking a real relationship with Him, you can start with the primary witness about Him, the Bible. It contains the record of His impact on people over an extended period. There you will meet Jesus, who is described as the clearest expression of God’s character in the whole history of the human race (John 14:6,9; Heb 1:1-3). There are also other ways to meet the invisible God. You can talk to people who know Him, and hear their testimonies about His impact in their lives. You can experiment with the kinds of actions that have helped others find God.
When you think of all the time and energy that many young women expended to get to know Leo, it is not surprising that in the aftermath of September 11, more and more people have been making the search for God a priority in their lives.
Steps to Authenticity (TDTCTW 10)
In the previous blog I shared my personal “jihad”, the struggle to be real. I promised to share some steps that have helped me greatly along the way.
1) First, accept by God’s grace that you are significant and valuable in Jesus Christ. Only a person who knows that he or she is valuable would ever dare to examine the darkness within. Human value was defined at the cross. Out of that sense of value comes the drive to be real.
2) Know your true condition. No one can be authentic unless they are willing to face the truth about themselves.
3) Accept the truth about yourself. As you go through the process of self-discovery, accept the results of that process as a true statement of your condition.
4) Take the truth about yourself to God for forgiveness and release. Tell God the truth about yourself no matter how painful that might be. There’s something about bringing the truth about yourself into the open that takes away its power. And since God already knows the truth about you and is committed to receiving you in the light of the cross there is no reason to fear.
5) Seek to continually grow in authenticity. Authenticity is a process not a state. No human being could become totally authentic in a moment. Our nerves could not handle it. So God feeds us the bad news a little bit at a time. And in the courage of our new-found sense of worth, we can face a little bit more each time.
What does all this have to do with my challenge to traditional Christianity in the previous chapter? Simply this. People have used the name of Jesus to slaughter Muslims (Crusades). They have used the name of Jesus to slaughter Christians they didn’t agree with (Inquisition). They have used the name of Jesus to enslave and marginalize Christians of a different skin color (slavery, apartheid). Somehow taking the name of Jesus did not prevent Christians from slaughtering other tribes in Rwanda and other denominations in Yugoslavia, or offering support to Hitler.
Traditional Christianity has too often been a massive exercise in corporate denial. Those taking the name of Jesus have too often been blind to the darkness within. If Jesus is to be the answer in today’s world a lot of people are going to have to find a way to look past Christianity and most Christians if they are to have any hope of finding Him. What a tragedy if some of the very institutions that uplift the name of Jesus should turn out to be the essence of what the Bible calls AntiChrist!
From September 11 on the world has cried out for healing. And there is hope for that healing in Jesus. But business as usual is no longer appropriate in the hallways of faith. I invite people of all faiths to proclaim jihad, not on people we disagree with, not on other faiths, but on ourselves, on our own willingness to tolerate pride, arrogance and self-deception. Any other spiritual quest will fall short of the healing this world so desperately needs. It is only by conquering the terrorist within that we can have any hoping of putting an end to the terrorism without. True authenticity is worth a holy war!
My Own Personal Jihad (TDTCTW 9)
Some thirty years ago I was visiting the Riverside Church in the Upper West Side of Manhattan one Sunday with a couple of friends. Riverside Church, along the Hudson River, has one of the five largest classical organs in the world. Being an organist myself I never got enough of it. The organist that day was Frederick Swann. He was internationally famous, with dozens of recordings.
When the worship service was over, I took my friends up on the platform to get a closer look at the organ. And since I knew quite a bit about such things, I began to explain some of the different features of the organ. As I talked about the organ, my audience began to grow. It was fun having a bigger audience. So I began to expand on the story a little. And the audience got even bigger. Then suddenly I began to realize that the people weren’t looking at me anymore. They were looking behind me. I turned looked around and was standing face to face with Frederick Swann himself. He looked me in the eye and said, “You’d better get your facts straight, Sonny, before you open your mouth.” He turned around and walked away.
I began to realize that day that something deep inside of me made it hard for me to be real, to be authentic. Instead of being honest and truthful I had played up to the audience in order to polish up my own image (which turned out to be a stupid way to do that). I felt humiliated, ridiculous and downright ugly! I wasn’t mad at Swann. How could I be? He was right about me! I was mad at myself. I hated whatever it was inside of me that was trying to hide my own ignorance and stupidity behind a facade of brilliant repartee. I didn’t want an incident like that to ever happen again on my account. So on that day I decided to make the struggle for authenticity my own personal jihad.
What does the Islamic idea of jihad have to do with my personal life? Historically, jihad is much less about killing people who disagree with you and much more about the personal struggle toward an authentic faith. In fact, the concept of jihad has at least three meanings within Islam. First, it refers to the struggle of all who believe in God to be faithful to Him and to live good lives. Second, it refers to the struggle to understand and interpret Islam. And third, it refers to the sacred struggle to defend and advance the cause of Islam. The root meaning of the word, however, is closer to the first meaning than the last.
I believe therefore that jihad, rightly understood, moves us away from terrorism and the mass murder of “infidels.” Jihad is about the battle with self to become a better person, not only on the outside, but also on the inside. Read in that light jihad is about battling the evil in one’s self before turning one’s attention to the evil in others. If we can defeat the terrorist within, there is some hope we can defeat the terrorist without.
The Bible addresses this same concept in the striking language of battle: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor 10:3-5). Here we see a clear contrast between the two interpretations of jihad or holy war. The true holy warfare is not about fleshly weapons like AK-47 rifles or M1A1 tanks or F-15 fighters. The true jihad is a battle with self, a battle toward authentic living, a battle to become more loving and kind in service to God and others. I believe that the great of all jihads is the struggle to be real.
Just as there are natural defense mechanisms at the physical level, so there are natural defense mechanisms at the emotional and psychological level. If someone says something hurtful about us, we may react defensively without even being aware that we have done so. At a basic level, these psychological mechanisms of defense are self-deceptions. When things go wrong, when we fail at something important, or when we are under verbal or emotional attack, we move quickly to our own defense and craft an “image,” whether we intend to or not. If knowing the truth will make us feel bad about ourselves, most of us would prefer not to know the truth.
Inauthenticity in relationships means avoiding issues and failing to communicate. But that is a recipe for long-term disaster. When it comes to finances, inauthenticity means not making a budget, not keeping track of expenses, not planning for retirement, and borrowing without knowing where the money is coming from. Few people survive that kind of financial “planning” for long! When it comes to health inauthenticity means eating whatever you want, sitting around all day, ignore all the rules of health and still hoping to live to 100 without a single illness. But that’s not real life. Inauthenticity can kill you and you’ll probably be the last one to know it before you go.
So faking it is not a useful option, whether we’re talking about individuals or nations. But being real is not easy to do. First of all, as we have seen, self-deception comes pretty naturally to human beings (Jer 17:9). Through self-deception we craft an image, not only for others, but even for ourselves. But there is an even deeper issue, I think. The root cause of this “image-building” seems to be a deep inner perception that we are hopeless and worthless. We are afraid to know the truth about ourselves, because then we’ll feel even worse! In the blog to follow I’ll briefly share some steps I have learned to apply in my own personal jihad toward authenticity.
A Challenge to My Fellow Christians (TDTCTW 8)
The climax of the Bible’s big picture is found in the last part, the New Testament. The Old Testament prophets pointed forward to a future major act of God. In that act God would send a Messiah to right the wrongs in this world. The Old Testament describes that Messiah as a prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15,18), a king like David (Jer 23:5-6), and a conquering hero (Zech 9:9-10). From texts like these, one could easily get the impression that Jesus would be a powerful king who would dominate the political forces in His world (many Christians act as if it were so). But Jesus used these texts for a moral purpose rather than a political or economic one. His kingdom was not like the nations of this world (John 18:36-37). Warfare was not the way to attain spiritual goals (John 18:10-11). Jesus’ kingdom had to do with character development, spiritual growth and enhanced relationships with others and with God (Matt 5:21-48; Luke 17:20-21). While Jesus’ kind of kingdom would change the world, it had nothing to do with the weapons of this world (2 Cor 10:3-5).
I have gained great respect for the Qur’an and the dedication of those who practice its faith with mercy and compassion. There is no doubt in my mind that the Qur’an represents a great advance on the religious sensibilities of the tribal religions it replaced. And while some Christians may disagree, I believe the God portrayed in the Bible “has not left Himself without witness” (Acts 14:17) among those who did not have the Bible. God recognizes the sincere worship of people in every nation as directed to Himself (Mal 1:11).
Nevertheless, the Qur’an still leaves God distant from us. The God of the Qur’an does not speak our language (unless we have learned Arabic). He is not deeply engaged in our existence. He is distant and easily seems uncaring and even vengeful. By way of contrast, the God of the Bible is a practical God that meets us where we are. Unlike the distant God of Mohammed, He is deeply engaged in the human condition. But the Bible goes one step further. It claims that Jesus of Nazareth, a human being born in a stable of Bethlehem, raised in Egypt and Palestine, was none other than the living incarnation of God’s person (Heb 1:1-3). One who was God from the beginning took on human flesh (John 1:1-3,14). Such a God is deeply concerned about our situation. He taught and healed and comforted people in the humblest of circumstances. He was a “humble” God who never commanded His followers to use weapons in His behalf. Instead He commanded them to love their enemies (Matt 5:44), just as He did when He died for the very ones who crucified him (Rom 5:8-10).
I offered a serious challenge to Muslim thinkers a few days ago, but my challenge to traditional Christianity today is even more pointed. After all, Muslims who take up arms in behalf of their faith can at least point to their own sacred texts for justification. But what justification does the Bible offer for the way the West flaunts its power and wealth in the world? Where in the teaching and practice of Jesus is there any basis for advancing the Christian agenda through military, political or economic means? A Muslim could be excused for missing God’s call to mercy and compassion in the violence of the Qur’an, but what excuse can the follower of Jesus offer for missing God’s call to openness, grace, love and peace?
I know, I know. The United States and Europe are no longer truly “Christian” nations. The West today is not pursuing a religious agenda, but a political and economic one. But in the light of Christianity’s past, in the light of the Crusades and the Inquisition, can we really expect the Muslim world to understand the distinction between Western action and Christian faith? When they look at Rwanda, Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel in the light of Christianity’s past, where is the spirit of Jesus?
I believe that traditional Christianity has failed in its own struggle to grasp and demonstrate the teachings and attitude of Jesus, who humbled Himself and stepped down from heavenly wealth, power, and glory (Phil 2:5-8). He demonstrated in human form that the divine answer to violence and terror is found not in power and wealth, but in humility, authenticity, and forgiveness. Traditional Christianity has failed as badly as Islam to provide the solutions to the world’s problems. But in the process it has strayed even further from its roots than Islam has. In the next chapter I explore the fundamental reason for Christianity’s inability to see its own failures and offer a solution that is grounded in both the Bible and the traditions of Islam.
When it comes to knowing the God of the Bible, a little tentativeness is advisable. It was the lack of such tentativeness that killed four ATF agents and led David Koresh and his followers to destruction. It was a lack of such tentativeness that led Mohamed Atta to do the ghastly “work of God” that was September 11 and Osama bin Laden to plan and encourage it. All three men thought they knew exactly what God wanted them to do and exactly how to bring about the result that God had in mind. All three believed that God’s ways and their thoughts were in perfect harmony.
I find this, frankly, amazing. We don’t expect anyone to paint the “final painting,” one so perfect that no more art needs to be produced. We don’t expect “the final and complete discovery” from any scientist. Yet we have the capacity to think we have fully understood God, as if God were far more limited a concept than science or art! Many use religion and God-talk as a tool in behalf of their own agendas. But as the Psalmist says that they have made a basic error, they thought that God was just like them; just as rigid, unbending and at times hateful as they were (Psalm 50:16-21).
But the Bible actually portrays a God who cannot be put into a comfortable human box, who is not predictable. Whenever we think, speak or write about God it is critical to maintain a reverent tentativeness about our conclusions. We must leave God the freedom to be God. While openness, honesty, authenticity and humility are very much part of the philosophical landscape today, a call for these virtues is more than just political correctness. It is mandated by the very words of Scripture, which have in the past been misused for political or economic gain, but upon more careful examination portray a God who is very much unlike ourselves.
In the wake of September 11, it is imperative that we not only combat terrorism with the weapons of this world, it is even more critical that we combat it with the weapons of truth. Hatred, disparagement of other religions, boastful self-confidence in one’s absolute correctness, these are the ultimate roots of terrorism. A faith that exhibits the compassion, mercy, justice and love of God with an appropriate humility and openness will be a major part of our recovery from the event that changed the world.
The Terrorist Within (TDTCTW 7)
All that week in Holland I spent every available moment watching the updates on CNN. The next afternoon I went for a long walk to clear my head. I crossed a bridge over a set of locks on the nearby canal, watching as a houseboat was lowered to the next level. I then set off through fields of grazing cattle, dodging speedy Dutch bikers on a lovely asphalt path about four feet wide. The landscape was perfectly flat, broken only by occasional trees, the canal and a couple of ponds. It was hard to reconcile that prosperous and peaceful atmosphere with the turmoil still churning inside me. I found I had trouble meeting the eyes of those walking or biking the other way. I really didn’t want to meet anyone, or talk to anyone.
After a couple of miles I entered a small, peaceful town. I walked along the main street with cars and an occasional truck moving by. There was the typical Dutch country church, a small grassy square with tall trees, and neat, well-kept houses with little gardens along the sidewalk. Everything looked so tranquil and serene, it was a strong contrast to the news of a wider world. But it seemed like a great place to find some peace on a shattered day.
At the other end of town I walked past a small school with a grassy playground along the sidewalk. In the playground were about 60 small, blond schoolchildren, aged perhaps 5-9, with three or four adult chaperons. There was a chain-link fence about three feet high and a short hedge between me and the children. Once again a peaceful scene, this time of happy child’s play.
A horrible thought suddenly struck me. What if I were a terrorist? What if I had brought a gun with me, hidden in my clothing? There was no security station on the way into town. Who could have stopped me? I shuddered that such thoughts would even enter my mind. It also dawned on me that no matter how many police, well-trained security teams, checkpoints or hardened defenses you put together you can’t prevent all acts of evil from occurring. What protected these children from me was not local security but my own inner conviction to do the right thing.
I began to ponder, was there a potential terrorist inside of me? Was there some sort of straight-line continuum between good citizens and mass murderers? Or are the kind of people who fly planes into buildings totally warped and different from me? Are the seeds of terrorism and evil inside all of us? I thought back to my own beginnings
Growing up in New York, I certainly did get into a bit of mischief from time to time. But there was one constant in my growing up experience. I was taught a faith in God that was clear, that spelled out the rules, and that provided guidance for my life. I guess most people would say I grew up in a “fundamentalist” home. I always knew when it was time to be home, for example. And I made every effort to be on time. If I was even slightly late my Mom gave me a long song and dance about almost calling the police and being sooooo worried. I learned that my life would be a lot easier if I followed the rules.
I came to think of God in similar terms. If you take your bath when you=re supposed to, if you go to church at the right time, if you are reasonably nice to your parents, God will be pleased with you. Stay away from alcohol, drugs and tobacco and God will approve. The rules were comforting and they were clear. Don’t run in church, you’ll scuff the floor. Don’t make too much noise. The problem was, there were so many rules that I had trouble remembering them all at the same time, so I was constantly messing up in one area or another. Although I tried real hard, I became increasingly sure that God was not pleased with me because I messed up so often.
One good thing about growing up with religious certainty was that you always knew who the bad guys were. They were easy to spot. They were the people who didn’t go to church. They smoked and drank and swore. They believed weird stuff about God (at least different from what I believed). They went to night clubs and shows and places like Las Vegas. The bad people didn’t live on my street, but I knew they were out there. I didn’t run into them every day, but when I did, I could feel good that I wasn’t like them.
I guess in some ways I wasn’t all that different from the kind of people that get recruited by al Qaeda. I certainly wasn’t the type to blow myself up or hurt anyone else, but I did have this really strong sense that my view of God was right and that a whole lot of people out there had it all wrong. And we=re finding out today that the kind of rigid, rule-based religion I experienced can be steered in some very ugly directions. I=m thankful that I never went there, but I realize now that I could have. Terrorism is born in the heart.
Related to this was the fact that I felt extremely out of place in the big picture of New York City. The world, as I saw it, was so different from the way most people looked at it I couldn’t really talk about my beliefs with most people. They just wouldn’t have had a clue what I was talking about. Here I was, interacting on a day-to-day basis with the most cutting-edge place on earth, and yet I would not allow myself to really participate in the life of the city. Although I had lived my whole life in the city, I still felt like a stranger in a strange land.
When I was in college, a speaker came for a week and emphasized one thing only. He suggested God was more interested in making friends than in condemning people. He encouraged me to put my effort into knowing God rather than doing stuff to avoid His disapproval. I was intrigued by the message. It was very different from the way I was raised, yet it was compelling. I decided to check what the Bible really had to say about the subject.
Here is where I made the first major change in my spiritual life. When I was a kid I had a tendency to ignore Bible texts that didn’t seem to support what I was thinking. I was operating from a selective approach. I decided to try three new strategies in my study of the Bible. 1) I would take a “big picture” approach to the text. I would be open to the whole Bible, as it reads, rather than picking and choosing whatever fit with beliefs I already held. 2) I would ground my understanding on what is clear in the text, rather than trying to make the less clear things say what I wanted them to say. 3) I would pay special attention to the ideas of people who disagreed with me. Maybe some of the “bad guys” knew something I didn’t.
The last point reminded me of what I call the “Saddam Hussein Syndrome.” Saddam Hussein’s advisors tended not to disagree with him, since most of the ones who did were soon dead! As a result, he didn’t get a lot of good advice! People told him what they thought he wanted to hear. So when I listen to what Muslims, Jews, atheists, Buddhists, Catholics, evolutionists, Baptists, or anybody else have to say about the Bible, there’s a chance I might learn something!
In practice I learned to test my ideas about God by the plain teachings of the Bible in its widest context. When I began to do this, I became amazed at what I had missed. My narrow perspective about God began to change, because the God of the Bible didn’t fit with the God I had been told about.
Where I Was on September 11, 2001 (TDTCTW 6)
I landed at Schiphol Aiport in Amsterdam early on the morning of September 11. It was a beautiful sunny day and I quickly hooked up with the driver who was to take me to a conference a couple of hours drive away. The countryside was flat as a desktop, but interesting in a Dutch sort of way. After a meal, a nap and a little reading I headed for the dining room of the conference center around 5:30 PM (11:30 AM, New York time).
I always get a little nervous the first time I am in a large group of new people, particularly when most of them aren=t speaking my language. In this case the conference had about 900 attendees from all over Europe, from the Arctic Circle and Iceland in the north and west to Greece and Romania in the south and east. In that setting I was somewhat relieved that the dining room was not crowded. That meant I could eat by myself without seeming anti-social.
I was halfway through my meal, when a pastor from Croatia approached me. I remembered having seen him somewhere before and tried to be friendly in a dazed, jet-lagged sort of way. I was about to feel a lot more dazed. . . .
“Have you heard the news from America?” he asked.
“What news?” I grunted, thinking I might be in for more explanation than I cared to receive at that moment.
“I just heard that four passenger jets have crashed today in the United States,” he said excitedly.
“No way!” I said, “Such a thing has never happened before!”
“Two of them crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and the towers collapsed, and another one crashed into the Pentagon!”
“World Trade Center collapsed? The Pentagon?” I was beyond confused, I was suspicious. One of the things I deal with in worldwide travel is all the wild and crazy rumors about stuff going on in America. People want to impress you with their knowledge of things and often they jump on reports that have no substance in the hope of impressing you. This was sounding like one of those times. “That’s impossible, you aren’t making this up are you?” In retrospect, I don’t think I was very nice to him.
“It must be true, I saw it on CNN. Go see for yourself. They have CNN on a big screen in the room just upstairs.”
I still didn’t know what to believe. I began to doubt my own reality. Perhaps I was still in a jet-lagged dream and would soon wake up in a bed somewhere in the Netherlands. But the food tasted real enough. I shook my head, trying to get the cobwebs out. I hurriedly finished my meal and dragged myself upstairs to the meeting room.
Several hundred people were crowded into the medium-sized room. Live feed from CNN was being projected onto a screen. Behind the CNN announcer was a view of the southern end of Manhattan Island in New York City. There was a huge cloud obscuring everything.
Although there were no seats available in the room, someone I knew motioned for the “New Yorker” to take his seat near the front in order to get a good view. I sat down and fixed my eyes on the screen for the next hour and a half. The nightmare continued. I peered intently at the screen looking for signs that the World Trade Center towers were still there. I couldn’t believe that they would have collapsed so easily. Then the network began repeatedly airing a new tape, showing the second airplane impacting the south tower, the fiery explosion that burst out the other side and the horrified cries of onlookers near the video camera. This was combined with repeated showings of panicked people running for their lives with a great billowing cloud of dust approaching rapidly behind them.
For me this scene cut deeper than for the hundreds of others watching with me. This was my home town. I grew up in New York. I had walked those very streets many times. No matter what perspective of the tragedy was being shown, I knew what I was looking at. I knew the likely location of the camera. I knew whether we were looking north, south, east or west. Then I considered what I knew about the World Trade Center. On a typical business day, about 50,000 people went to work in the twin towers. At any given time, perhaps 10,000 tourists would also be there, going up to the viewing decks of the South Tower or the restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower. As the reality of the towers= collapse was made clear by repeated showings of the video, the magnitude of the tragedy began to sink in. This was my home town! These were my neighbors and friends. I just knew that somebody close to me must have been in those towers, must be in the rubble that was left of the towers.
Then it struck me! Rolf, a good friend from school days, had asked me what he and his family ought to do with a week in New York. I told him, “Whatever you do, make sure that you visit the observation deck of the World Trade Center and catch the view of New York.” September 11 was right in the middle of the week he was supposed to be visiting New York. I was distraught with concern but could do absolutely nothing about it. I had no way of contacting him from the Netherlands.
I took a little comfort when I remembered my advice, “On the day that you visit the downtown, get to the Statue of Liberty ferry first thing in the morning. That is the only way you might get the chance to climb all the way to the top of the statue. Then, when you get back to Manhattan, walk to the New York Stock Exchange and arrange for a tour later in the day. That way you’ll get to the observation deck of the World Trade Center in early afternoon, when the view is the best.” I realized that if he had followed my advice, he would be looking at the tragedy from Liberty Island, not crushed under the rubble! But I had no way of knowing where he was (later I found out he and his family had decided not to go to the towers that day).
What I started to learn about myself that day is the topic of tomorrow’s blog.
The Role of Faith and Religion in Surviving the Pandemic
I am interrupting the series on September 11, 2001 to share a summary of some new information on staying healthy during the pandemic. You may remember that some time ago I reported that employees of Loma Linda University Health seemed to be contracting the illness in roughly the same percentages as the wider community (although high proximity to Covid patients would suggest it should be higher), but that the virus at that time had caused only two deaths in the employee population whereas the numbers would have suggested 20-30. So there seemed to me there might be some correlation between the Loma Linda lifestyle and some protection both from contracting the disease and from severe consequences when one does contract it.
I consider Harold Koenig of Duke University the world’s leading authority on the interaction of faith and health. I have just been made aware of an article he wrote in the Journal of Religion and Health which aggregates years of research (more than 50 articles) on faith, infectious diseases and the human immunce system. Koenig is a medical doctor who is also recognize as a player in the field of religion. The title of his article is “Maintaining Health and Well-Being by Putting Faith into Action During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” I will summarize the main points of the article here. From here on the words are mine but the ideas are Koenig’s, as well as I could understand them.
Throughout the world many people are experiencing fear and anxiety in relation to the novel coronavirus which produces the deadly illness called COVID-19. Yet these very emotions actually increase people’s susceptibility to the dreaded virus through an adverse effect on the body’s immune system. On the other hand, positive emotions like love, joy and peace have been shown to boost immune functioning, and thus minimize both the likelihood of contracting the disease and the severity of symptoms when one does upon contract it. A large and growing body of objective scientific research underline the benefits to the immune system of prayer and meditation, attendance at religious services, and engagement in other religious activities.
Koenig lists a number of suggestions for those who wish to remain healthy and resilient—mentally, spiritually, and physically—during the anxious time of the pandemic. I will discuss them very briefly here. 1) Deepen Your Religious Faith. Use lockdowns and other measure to create time for personal religious activities that lead to a stronger relationship with God. Multiple studies document the benefits of a genuine religious faith on immune functioning and vulnerability to infection, particularly viral infection. When life was normal most people felt too busy to spend much time in devotional exercises. Abnormal times provide opportunity for building spiritual health.
2) Love your neighbor and put that love into action. Koenig notes the historical reality that Christians have often been at the forefront of caring for people during times of pandemic. Research supports the health benefits to the one doing acts of compassion for others. It not only gives a sense of meaning and purpose to life, but it enhances one’s own sense of health and well-being.
3) Use technology to reach out. Through tools like Zoom and Marco Polo provide virtual “hugs and handshakes” to people you are otherwise isolated from. It seems like a gift from God that at this very time when social isolation is at its peak, there are so many new tools for enhancing relationships without physical contact. Research supports the immune benefits of social interactions, making them worth pursuing by any available means.
4) Love yourself. As the pandemic drags on, and one has not been infected, it is increasingly tempting to develop a cavalier attitude toward the virus and feel somewhat invulnerable. But no faith tradition condones recklessness. People should not expose themselves unnecessarily. Now is not the time to relax such good health measures as frequent hand washing, and applying measures like masking and social distancing whenever one is indoors with a lot of people, such as in church.
5) Pay attention to physical health. While Koenig is not a Seventh-day Adventist, he is a big fan of the Blue Zone lifestyle practiced by many at Loma Linda. Staying physically healthy correlates with resistance to infection. So Koenig recommends regular exercise (30-45 minutes a day), 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night, weight control, hydration (minimum of 2 quarts a day of water), and appropriate quantities of supplements like Vitamins D, C and E, especially Vitamin D, which has been shown to directly improve immune function. Three-quarters of Americans are Vitamin D deficient.
6) Be actively involved in a religious community. Many systematic scientific studies report a positive association between religious involvement and indicators of healthy immune function. Religious involvement reduces inflammation and increases the immune functions that are needed to resist infection. Even those with compromised immune systems function better if they engage in communal religious activities.
If one follows the above six suggestions, Koenig concludes, one is less likely to contract the virus and if one does, the course of the illness will likely be less severe, and recovery is likely to be sooner because of increased emotional, social, physical and spiritual resilience.
A Friendly Suggestion to Muslims Today (TDTCTW 5)
In reflecting on the previous two blogs, I would like to offer a word of counsel and encouragement to Muslim thinkers today, but before I do I want to make it clear that I am not blaming Islam for all the world’s troubles. While Islam has failed to solve the problems of the Middle East, Christianity has fared just as poorly at influencing the West in the direction of peace, humility, and compassion. I offer the following comments in the desire to be helpful.
I suggest that the thoughts and actions of people like Mohammed Atta and Osama bin Laden ultimately pose a greater threat to Islam than to the West. They seem to have believed that the true faith is shown by material power and wealth that resemble the power and wealth of Allah. In other words, the fruit of true Islam would be world dominance and material wealth. But Islam has not produced this kind of result in today’s world. Bin Laden and others have blamed the weakness, the oppression, and the poverty in Islamic countries on the West. But it seems more likely that the weakness of the Islamic world reflects a failure to adjust to the rapid changes over the last couple of centuries.
To claim material wealth and power as the outcome of true faith is to draw an immediate contrast with the West, which exhibits the very military might and economic abundance that ought to be associated with Allah’s cause. No wonder Atta and bin Laden were frustrated with both the Middle East and the West! The “infidel” has reaped the very things that should be signs of Allah’s favor. So the extremist Islam of Atta and bin Laden focuses not on producing better people but on seeking to destroy the tokens of the West’s ascendancy. But such an Islam can win only by destroying others, not by building them up. Such an Islam can only increase the violence and misery in the world.
But there is another option. The second approach is to say: “Islam becomes the best channel to God when it focuses on faith, not on wealth and power. While Muslims may suffer defeat and poverty in this world, they are the ultimate winners because they have the maturity to ignore the allures of power and wealth. While Islam may appear to be a loser in the eyes of the West, it is actually a winner, it is winning human hearts to God by humility, mercy and compassion.”
An Islam that has the strength to renounce power and wealth would also abandon war as a way of achieving spiritual goals. It would free itself to become a spiritual community that would be attractive to all the nations of the world. Such a course might even shame the so-called “Christian” West into taking the humility and compassion of Jesus more seriously!
If this vision for Islam is the best course of action, the jihadists’ focus on the West and its wealth and power could prove a lethal sidetrack for the faith. Instead of focusing on the spiritual task, people become consumed with destroying the West’s power and wealth. Muslim thinkers would do well to reject the al Qaeda doctrine by renouncing wealth and power as emblems of righteousness. In this way of thinking Muslims should leave the West alone and not covet its riches, but get on with the business of spirituality. If power and wealth is a deception, then the Western way of life will eventually collapse on its own.
I believe that Islam, therefore, can make a major contribution to the world in the wake of September 11 by seizing the path of humility, openness and spiritual growth. People are hungry for just such a faith. Perhaps the following sura could point the way: “Summon thou [people] to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and with kindly warning: dispute with them in the kindest manner: thy Lord best knoweth those who stray from his way, and He best knoweth those who have yielded to his guidance. If ye make reprisals, then make them to the same extent that ye were injured: but if ye can endure patiently, best will it be for the patiently enduring. Endure then with patience. But thy patient endurance must be sought in none but God. . .” (16:125-127)
The best response to September 11 is a faith that categorically rejects violence in the name of religion. Religious violence improves nothing, it only makes the world a more miserable and a more dangerous place. Extreme forms of religious fundamentalism do more than kill, they divide those who remain and impoverish them, both materially and spiritually.
The Qur’an and the Bible (TDTCTW 4)
Both the Bible and the Qur’an are books of divine revelation. Between them they communicate the will of God for about half the world’s population. Abraham and Moses are central figures in both books. The Qur’an even has positive portrayals of Jesus, although there are significant differences between the accounts of Jesus in the New Testament and those of the Qur’an. But although there are many common elements between the two holy books, they are of a different character in at least two fundamental ways.
One fundamental difference lies in the nature of the revelations themselves. The Bible reveals God through His progressive dealings in history. God meets people where they are. The Qur’an is very different from this picture. The Qur’an does not offer chains of history or a coherent focus on any particular theme. Instead it reads like a stream of consciousness, it jumps here and there from commands of God to stories of the ancients to theological pronouncements to prayers to descriptions of the final judgment. The Qur’an is not organized thought. It instead contains recitations by Mohammed which were collected after his death and organized roughly from the longest to the shortest.
The style of the Qur’an, however, is grounded in its very nature. For Jews and Christians the Bible is the product of divinely inspired human beings, generally writing in their own words. Muslims, on the other hand, regard the Qur’an as the eternal words of Allah Himself. According to them, Mohammed played no role in shaping the recitations recorded in the Qur’an. They are the very words of God Himself spoken in the Arabic language, heard by Mohammed and transcribed in Arabic by him. Thus the Qur’an is not the Bible of the Muslims, it functions for them more like Jesus Christ does for Christians. To quote Bob Woodward of Newsweek, “In short, if Christ is the word made flesh, the Qur’an is the word made book.”
For the Muslim God is totally removed from human contact (transcendent). So the closest any human being can possibly come to God in this life is the very words of the Qur’an. And since those words are the very words of Allah Himself, they are only truly valid in the original Arabic. Thus Muslims read the Qur’an and use it in prayers only in the Arabic language, even though the majority of Muslims do not understand it. But what counts for them is not the meaning and the content. The very sounds and syllables of the Arabic Qur’an mediate the presence of God to the one who reads and speaks them. So Islam is not primarily a doctrinal religion. With a few exceptions (there is no God but Allah, Mohammed is His messenger, are examples) Islam is not about what a person believes so much as an experience of God resulting in obedience and submission to His will.
So the Qur’an is very different from the Bible. For the Muslim the Qur’an is the pure and perfect revelation of God, making Islam the only perfect religion. But in spite of this belief in the perfection of the Qur’an’s revelation, Islam today is suffering from a major crisis of authority. The “perfect” revelation is nevertheless ambiguous at many points. Today it seems that any Muslim with an agenda feels free to cite the Qur’an in support of that agenda.
One of the most crucial areas of dispute in the Muslim world today is the role of violence and warfare in the Qur’an. Some who focus on the warfare texts of the Qur’an find fuel for exclusivism, hatred, and killing in the name of Allah. This should not be a total surprise, Westerners reading the Qur’an tend to be appalled at its gruesomeness in places. Grounded in the violence of the Qur’an, all that some Muslims need to justify suicide bombings and highjackings is the perception of a threat to the position and prestige of Islam. As we have seen, Mohammed Atta and Osama bin Laden have seen such threats coming from a variety of directions.
Many Muslim scholars, however, especially those living in the West, see another side to the Qur’an. They cite recitations that indicate Allah created diverse peoples and cultures for a purpose. Other religious perspectives, therefore, are not to be battled against, but tolerated. And while the Qur’an portrays Allah as a God of vengeance (there are similar concepts in parts of the Old Testament), it has even more to say about mercy, goodness and forgiveness. So the Islamic world is understandably divided in its interpretation. The heart of Mohamed Atta, however, was clearly undivided. He had a firm and fanatical belief that what he was doing was pleasing to God.
So while Mohamed Atta believed that what he was doing pleased God, it is helpful to remember that his fanaticism is not characteristic of the vast majority of believers in the Muslim world. In fact, the events of September 11 were so incompatible with the way the average Muslim thinks that millions in the Middle East believed the attacks on September 11 were some sort of Israeli plot. They felt that no true Muslim could have done such a thing.
But the ambiguity of the Qur’an remains a problem. Islam arose in a brutally violent time (as did the early Israelites) and its sacred book bears witness to that violence. Mohammed and his followers were constantly faced with shifting tribal loyalties, betrayals and misunderstandings. In the process Mohammed led his forces into numerous battles, and at times slaughtered what we, at least, would call “innocents.” So the use of warfare and the slaughter of innocents has some support in the practice of Mohammed himself, the original transcriber and interpreter of the Qur’an. In his defense, however, many would point out that the tribes he slaughtered were themselves seeking to exterminate his faith, making these slaughters “defensive actions.”
Here we must honestly confront a major difference between the behavior of Mohammed, and the teaching and behavior of Jesus, the respective founders of these two great monotheistic religions. Mohammed and his successors clearly used violence in order to achieve the expansion of Islam. Nothing in the teaching or practice of Jesus, on the other hand, gives any encouragement to violence or warfare in behalf of the faith.
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. . . If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Rom 12:17-21.
Jesus clearly taught that His followers were to turn the other cheek (Matt 5:38-39), love their enemies, and riddle those who hated them with the bullets of kindness and prayer, rather than AK-47s (Matt 5:44). For Jesus, the highest place in Paradise was not for suicide bombers or battlefield heros, in Jesus’ order “the last would be first” (Matt 19:30) and “the meek would inherit the earth” (Matt 5:5– the teachings of Jesus on this point are echoed elsewhere in the New Testament: Rom 12:17-21; 1 Pet 2:21-23; 3:9).
And Jesus practiced what he preached. When a mob came to apprehend him unjustly, his friend Peter drew a sword and became a slasher in Jesus’ defense. Yet Jesus ordered Peter to put away his sword, even in a defensive action (John 18:10-11). When brought before an unjust court he said, “My kingdom is not of this world, if it were my servants would have fought to prevent my capture” (John 18:36-37). He placed his life in God’s hands, not in the hands of well-meaning, but armed men (Luke 22:40).
It is certainly true that the Bible has its own stories of violence in the name of the Lord. In Exod 15 God is a stalwart defender of His people, assaulting the Egyptian army with His judicial fury (Exod 15:7-10). He drowns the hapless armies of Pharaoh in the Red Sea in response to plight of his people. But stories like these do not have the universal force of the Qur’anic commands. They were specific actions under specific circumstances. They are not a prescription for how God’s people are to respond to situations with their own efforts.
Furthermore, these stories are not “considered God’s own eternal words, as Muslims believe Qur’anic verses to be. . . Israeli commandos do not cite the Hebrew prophet Joshua as they go into battle, but Muslim insurgents can readily invoke the example of their Prophet, Muhammad, who was a military commander himself. And while the Crusaders may have fought with the cross on their shields, they did not–could not–cite words from Jesus to justify their slaughters” (Bob Woodward, Newsweek, “The Bible and the Qur’an,” February 11, 2002, p, 53).
Anatomy of a Terrorist
“Except for the place where they died, Bill Feehan and Mohamed Atta would seem to have had absolutely nothing in common. . . . As a lifelong firefighter who rose to become first deputy commissioner of the New York City Fire Department, Feehan was directly or indirectly responsible for saving thousands of lives. As a suicidal terrorist who flew American Airlines flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center; Atta murdered thousands, including Bill Feehan, who was helping a woman at the base of the North Tower when the building collapsed on him. Any suggestion of moral equivalence between the two men is repugnant. And yet, it must be said, both believed in the rightness of their causes with absolute certainty.” (Newsweek, Dec. 31, 2001/Jan. 7, 2002, p. 40)
Is there an “anatomy of a terrorist?” How is it that two wiggly baby boys could one day end up in the same place but for such different reasons? How could anyone come to believe the slaughter of innocents was the “right” thing to do? It would be a lot easier on most of us if we could believe that Mohamed Atta was totally insane, the victim of mad delusions. But could a truly crazy person work with the calm and careful purpose that Atta exhibited? Does it make more sense to assume that Mohamed Atta was simply evil? And if so, how did he get that way?
According to a description in Newsweek, based on interviews with family and others who knew him, Mohamed Atta would have seemed an unlikely candidate for terrorist action. Short and slim (in the highjacking of American Airlines, Flight 11 he was leader and pilot, the other four highjackers provided the brawn) he was considered a “mamma’s boy” by his father. Atta Sr. would complain to his wife that she was raising Mohamed as a girl. Even in his 20s he continued to sit in his mother’s lap from time to time. There was a further problem for a prospective highjacker: he absolutely hated flying! His sister, who was a doctor, had to provide medicine against cramps and vomiting every time he flew.
An interesting obsession of his, however, offered a premonition of the shocking way that he would choose to die. On the wall of Mohamed Atta’s apartment in Hamburg, Germany was a black-and-white poster of construction workers perched on a beam of the Empire State Building high above New York (taken back in 1930). According to his teachers and former classmates, Atta believed that high-rise buildings were a curse introduced into the Middle East from the West. In the Middle East the traditional method of construction has been one- or two-story houses with private courtyards. When this was done well it resulted in the kind of charming, bustling neighborhood life that tourists to the Middle East love to taste. The interior courtyards provided privacy, the beauty of the neighborhood provided dignity, and the whole fostered interaction and community.
In the 60s and 70s, however, Middle Eastern cities and towns became filled with impersonal and ugly apartment complexes. Atta’s own family moved into an 11th floor apartment in 1990, as he was graduating with an engineering degree from Cairo University. The building his own family lived in became for him a shabby symbol of Egypt’s embrace of Western ways. Secular Arabs had accepted the negative trappings of the modern world without attaining its wealth and freedom.
Atta began to study ways to reverse the situation and restore the old glories of Islam. A major opportunity came when his father decided to send him to engineering school at Hamburg Technical University in Germany. There he pursued a degree in urban-planning studies. His thesis was on the restoration of Aleppo, an ancient Syrian city, to its pure Islamic past– devoid of skyscrapers. He was awarded a B+ for the thesis.
But how did the mamma’s boy become a mass murderer? Atta’s progress from idealistic student to Islamic militant to terrorist seems to have been gradual. At first his goal was the improvement of urban life in the Middle East. Then in Cairo University he came under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which aimed to create an Islamic state and limit Western influence in Egypt through non-violent means.
Mohamed Atta’s gathering resentments were probably sharpened by the anti-foreigner attitude in Germany, where Muslim immigrants often feel like second-class citizens. He found refuge in the mosques of Hamburg, where the mullahs have a lot more freedom to speak than they do in Egypt. Recruiting for the terrorist underground sometimes occurs in these mosques. Atta is believed to have been specifically recruited into al Qaeda by Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a German citizen of Syrian descent (reported in USA Today on June 19, 2002).
In 1995, Atta went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, searching for a deeper commitment to his faith. In 1997 he traveled to Afghanistan and enrolled in one of Osama bin Laden’s training camps for terrorists. Egyptians were given special treatment in these camps, so Atta would have quickly felt at home. The camps were designed to solidify beliefs, fan the flames of hatred, and then train people for specialized roles in the mission of terror. Atta himself was chosen for a leadership role and trained in the arts of bomb making and chemical weaponry. While he was not intimidating in appearance, he seems to have had a hard stare that made it difficult for people to cross him. Power is more than just a physical thing.
When he returned to Hamburg in 1998 he established an al Qaeda cell that included two roommates, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah, who also participated in the suicide highjackings on September 11. All three came from middle-class families, were skilled in computers and were highly educated. Once set on his course, Atta made further preparation by getting flight training in Florida, examining potential targets in the US, and finally heading for Portland, Maine, where he was to board a connecting flight to Boston with one of his terrorist “muscle-men,” Abdulaziz Alomari. In Boston they were able to transfer without passing through further security and the rest is history. A “momma’s boy” who hated skyscrapers found a way to destroy one of the two most massive towers in the world, at the cost of thousands of human lives. And he did so in the name of God.
According to Newsweek, Mohamed Atta carefully planned out his final moves. In a document he titled “The Last Night” he wrote to himself, “Be happy, optimistic, calm, because you are heading for a deed God loves and will accept. It will be the day, God willing, you spend with the women of paradise.” And with regard to the last moment before impact, Atta wrote, “Either end your life while praying, seconds before the target, or make your last words: ‘There is no God but God, and Mohammad is His messenger.’” Was Atta’s vision the inevitable product of Islam or did he misunderstand the faith he served so fervently? Does the Qur’an itself contain the seeds of suicidal terrorism or is al Qaeda a blasphemous misinterpretation of Mohammed’s original intentions? To be continued.
When Mohamed Atta’s plane struck the north tower of the World Trade Center Bill Feehan was at his Brooklyn office. A 42-year veteran, he had held every imaginable job in the New York City Fire Department, from “proby” to acting commissioner. At 71 years of age he could have retired years before September 11. In fact, one of Feehan’s aides had sensed that he was about to call it quits. A memorial plaque for firefighters who died in the line of duty hung in the lobby of FDNY headquarters. It had room for 780 names. Over 136 years of existence the Fire Department had bid final farewell to 778 of its number. One day Feehan told a friend, “I want to be out of here before that plaque is full.” Little did he know at that moment that on a sunny day in September the list would grow by nearly 50%.
An aide called Feehan, “Hey boss! I think you better see this! A plane went into the World Trade Center.”
Feehan emerged from his office, looked out a west-facing window and saw the smoke swirling from the upper levels of the north tower. “Oh my God!” he said, “Let’s go!” He and his team raced across the Brooklyn Bridge to take charge of the fire companies responding to the tragedy. Although they did not know each other, Feehan was about to join Mohamed Atta in the rubble of the North Tower. They both arrived there by choice. Bill Feehan and Mohamed Atta met their deaths in the same place because one man chose to destroy and the other chose to save.