This Year's 9/11 Anniversary

 September of 2021 has 2 notable anniversaries. The first one occurred on Saturday as we, with great sadness and perhaps some fear of the future, remember what happened 20 years ago on that date. The next anniversary will be discussed next week.

I still have vivid memories of how I found out and what my reactions were. Our two kids were in school. Both the wife and I taught but at different universities. I was at home grading papers while listening to an Art Tatum cd. I was scheduled to give those papers back and to give a quiz to an afternoon class. A student called me to ask if we were going to have our scheduled quiz since one of the Twin Towers was struck by an airplane. 

My first reaction was to say that of course we are going to have a quiz. I said that because I could only picture a small plane flying into one of the Twin Towers. The TV reports quickly corrected my false assumption. I went to campus to find that classes had been cancelled. On the drive home, an electronic sign on the highways I was taking, a highway that led to NYC, stated that all entry points to NYC were closed.

When I got home, I watched more of the reports on the attacks on tv. It was a horrible time. Atrocities were committed against people here and many died a horrible senseless death because of the rage of some religious extremists.

I thought for sure that if we sent the military in there that they would get the job done. That is because in the first time in decades, our troops would be fighting and be put in harm's way in response to their own nation being attacked rather than for some foreign policy venture.

But something else was occurring. I was in the beginning stages of going through massive changes in my political views. For most of my life, I was typical political conservative. When I had voted, it was always for Republican candidates. I was relieved that Bush had beaten Gore in the 2000 election. But being moved by my best friend, I started to read non-conservative material. I started with reading a book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by Noam Chomsky along with reading some of Martin Luther King's Jr. writings. While Chomsky had a passion for fairness in that our nation should follow the rules standards that it imposes on others, Martin Luther King Jr. demonstrated a passion for winning over others. I could not find any arguments against their thinking.

That change I was beginning to go through in the summer of 2001 partially colored how I saw the attacks. Added to the anger I felt for the atrocities committed against us, I knew that they occurred within a certain context. That though we were victims of heinous attacks, we were not necessarily innocent victims. That though the attacks on us were immoral and wrong, our policies contributed greatly to the motivation of our attackers to attack us. That like us, they too were enraged by attacks on their own people. But by their own people, these attackers were thinking outside the box of national borders. Later on, my reading revealed who their own people were. It included the Iraqi victims, with hundreds of thousands of them being children, who died from the combination of the infrastructure attacks from the first Persian Gulf War along with the following sanctions. Their own people also included Palestinians, including many civilians, who were killed by Israel's Occupation against the Palestinians.

Here we should note that our policies that led to far more deaths than the 9/11 attacks did are no justification for the 9/11 attacks. But our deadly policies provided the motivation for 19 men to become coldhearted vicious murderers.

Because of our authoritarian culture, we prefer to think in black-white terms. That means that for us to regard as victims, they have to be faultless while victimizers are seen as being evil only. And perhaps it is that kind of thinking that prevents many of us from seeing those civilians who suffer at the hands of our foreign policies as being victims. Why? It is because it is difficult to see such people as being totally innocent and nearly impossible for us to acknowledge our nation as being capable of doing any evil let alone only being evil. Perhaps that thinking causes some to conclude that those who try to understand that 9/11 attacks in the context of our foreign policies are only trying to justify the attacks. The world, however, is more complicated than what our logic allows for.

Certainly those who have died because of the military operations that we have either conducted or supported are victims as much as the victims of the 9/11 attacks continue to be. And that is the problem here. Those innocent victims are objects of opportunity by those directing the violence. Those innocent civilians are, in a sense, used as a moat that protects those who make our foreign policies or those who use terrorism to strike back.

Maybe as an American, I can say that the lives of Americans mean more to me than the lives of those who are victims of our foreign policies, but I cannot say that as a Christian despite my many faults. While some churches teach that we are Christians first and Americans second, I disagree. Yes, those who believe in Christ are Christians first, but I can't be partisan here. People, regardless of their nationality, are equally important because all are made in the image of God regardless of their nationality, race, ethnicity, ideologies, biological sex, gender identification, and so on. Not being an American should not make the life of any person less important than the life of an American.

Martin Luther King Jr. expressed a similar sentiment only he couched it in terms of sharing the Gospel. That the Gospel is meant for all people including their children regardless of where they are from or their ideologies. 

Thus, my Christian beliefs do not tell me that I am a Christian first and an American second. Rather, I am a Christian first and then a person--a citizen of the world who is a fellow image bearer of God-- second. Then I could somewhere add to that that I am an American. Because of my Christian beliefs, supporting my nation right or wrong has been replaced by the belief that I want America to be neither the practitioner nor the victim of injustice.

It was black-white thinking that led George Bush to claim that we were attacked because of our freedoms. Here, Bush was telling us to believe that 19 people sacrificed themselves to commit mass murder and start a war because we could choose between cheering for the Red Sox or the yankees, or that we choose between eating a hamburger or fried chicken for lunch. Does that make sense? 

According to Bush's thinking, our nation was truly a victim in that it was totally innocent while our new enemies were totally evil. But as evil as our attackers were, Bush's thinking is wrong. Just as we continue to remember those who died from 9/11, the 9/11 attackers were at least partially remembering their dead when they attacked us. Again, that does not justify the 9/11 attacks. But realizing the context of those attacks could help us to stave off some future attacks before they are even conceptionalized by demanding that our foreign policies be solely determined by what is just and merciful rather than on opportunistic utilitarianism or tribalism.

Why My 9/11 Article Is A Week Late

Last week was the week to write about 9/11 and the horrible atrocities that took place that day. And yet I didn't. I didn't because I feel conflicted about the day. Yes, I knew someone who was murdered that day by the terrorists. And yes I unambiguously fee grief over the loss of American lives. But there is something else to feel at the same time and perhaps the following hypothetical will illustrate that.

Suppose the Palestinians set aside a day where they would mourn all of those who were killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now if they only mourned the deaths of the Palestinians killed in the conflict, then one could say that their mourning is self-serving. Or let's say that it was the Israelis who were going to mourn the deaths of all those killed in the conflict and that they only mourned the deaths of Israelis. Then their mourning would also be self-serving.

Now just as the deaths of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorism caused Palestinians to be killed or just as the deaths of Palestinians killed by the IDF or settlers caused Israelis to be murdered by terrorists, so to the people we killed with our foreign policies caused one of our enemies to strike back in the only way they could, they employed terrorism.

Who did we kill? With both our attacks on Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War and our sanctions that followed, many Iraqi civilians, including hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, to die because our military destroyed their infrastructure and thatcoupled with the sanctions that prevented the repairing of that infrastructure murdered so many Iraqi children. We could say that the same applies to the deaths of Palestinians from Israel using the military to impose their control over the region.

The deaths of Iraqis from the sanctions and the harsh occupation against the Palestinians are the reasons why we were attacked on 9/11. Those deaths could never justify the 9/11 atrocities, but they did serve as a reason for a violent retaliation in the only way one side can when there is such a military mismatch. Thus, if I forget those Palestinian or Iraqi casualties,  my sentimental reaction any 9/11 ceremony is self-serving. My praise for the innocent American victims of 9/11. And by self-serving I mean that I using my praise of the innocent 9/11 victims as an excuse for self-praise. That is self-praise of my nation.

We need to remember that when a government that owns a large military uses that military to bully other nations, then some from those nations can only strike back in a way that we consider cheating: they cheat. They cheat by attacking innocent civilians. They cheat because they cannot hope to win a straight up brawl between the two military battes. In addition, we should remember James's warning from the 2nd chapter of his epistle  which prohibits us from having preferences. And not remembering those who died on the other side of the conflict is showing preference.

There are two things we should mourn on the anniversary of 9/11. We should obviously  remember those murdered by the attacks. But we need to also remember those whom we attacked in hopes that we stop our government from bullying others around.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 12, 2018

Sept 11

To R. Scott Clark and this blogpost denouncing ethnically-based theologies such as Black Theology. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Despite some of the good things that were written in the above article, there is one problem that was glossed over. That problem was whether there is a need for such identity-group based theologies. Because of the tremendous ethnic-based, and we can include class-based, oppressions and persecutions from the past and present, the need for such identity-group based theologies becomes legitimate. And that is especially true since Christians are seen as either having supported are participated with the oppressors. So while one could judge the merits and faults of Cone's Black Theology, one must be open to whether theologies that address specific hardships that groups of people face is legitimate.  And here, we need to investigate by asking people from different marginalized groups whether their needs caused by systemic injustice are fully met by the identity-group, generic theologies of the past. To reject the need to investigate from an apriori perspective is to assume that the confessions and standards from the past are sufficient in addressing today's needs. And such an assumption seems to come from arrogance rather than a concern for the Gospel.

One should only point to history to help determine whether the need for identity group theologies is legitimate. We should note that during the Civil Rights movement in this nation, many who opposed the movement were Christians who held to the revered confessions from the past but had their own Identity-group based theology as well. And even before that movement, there were prominent Christian leaders who claimed to have submitted to those confessions who also supported and even promoted white supremacy and that included slavery. Acknowledgments of that those grave sins are directly acknowledged by resolutions of apologies and regrets issued by both the PCA and SBC.

We could also point to other cases from the past where the Church supported and promoted systemic injustices in both the US and the rest of the world. The dominant branch of the Church supported those with wealth and power during the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. That siding with wealth and power not only  promoted systemic injustices, class-based injustices in those instances, it brought unnecessary persecution and shame onto the Gospel. We should note here that the dominant branch of the Church in America, conservative Protestantism, currently supports and promotes those with wealth and power in this country. And there are many other corporate sins that the American conservative Church has supported and promoted. We might even include the Pilgrims, whom Clark mentions, because of their ethnically-based sins committed against Native Americans. In fact, those who came from Amsterdam showed the same ethnic and cultural concerns for themselves that Blacks and other groups have today.

The following quote from the above article shows the fault in Clark's reasoning:

Under the New Testament, after the death of Christ, for Christians, those old distinctions remained important as sociological and historical realities but not as religious realities. Those Gentiles to whom God graciously gave new life (regeneration) and true faith, remained Gentiles and Jews who received those same benefits of Christ remained Jews but their Jewish identity lost its religious significance. Paul calls the Old Testament laws that distinguished Jew and Gentile a “dividing wall” (Eph 2:14) which has been “torn down” in the death of Christ.

Acknowledging that the 'old distinctions' continue to be important in terms of our 'sociological and historical realities' is a cause for the continuance of systemic injustices that fuel the need for identity-group based theologies. And that to totally reject today's identity-group based theologies indicates that one belongs to those who are privileged, rather than to those who are marginalized.

It is one thing to correct the errors expressed in today's identity-group based theologies. But to deny the need for such theologies shows an ignorance of or dismissive attitude toward what it means to be marginalized. Such are not Biblical practices when we consider what the OT prophets and James had to say about injustice.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Joe Carter and his blogpost listing 5 facts about 9/11. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Two other facts about 9/11 should be mentioned. First, the 9/11 attacks were not first strikes. Rather they were responses to US foreign policies including the UN sanctions forced on Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait--those sanctions were pushed through the UN and implemented by the US and Great Britain. Those sanctions were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children let alone the deaths of many adults. In addition, US carte blanche support for Israel and its brutal occupation against the Palestinians was another cause for the attacks.
Second, the attacks on the US on 9/11 of 2001 were not the first significant attacks on 9/11. Those belonged to a US supported military coup that overthrew the democratically elected President of Chilé, Salvador Allende and installed the brutal military dictatorship of  Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet was later indicted for crimes against humanity in his own nation but he died before any trial could take place.

The atrocities that occurred on both 9/11s were without excuse. But that doesn't meant that they randomly took place or were without cause. The question becomes which 9/11 attacks are more understandable though without excuse.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Bradley Birzer and his blogpost praising President Andrew Jackson as a ‘true American republican.’ This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

To say that Jackson was an honorable man because of his frontier ethics forgets that the presence of frontier ethics challenged Native Americans for ownership of the land. And to say that Andrew Jackson was honorable because his policies sought to protect Native Americans from disaster provides a tremendously huge indictment against his fellow Americans including those who lived on the frontier for their regard and desired treatment of Native Americans.

Also, the question about the Trail of Tears is not as much about under whose Presidency did it occur, it is about whose Presidencies helped cause that tragic event. So it seems that Jackson really didn't oppose the rampant hatred of Native Americans during his time to point of resistance. Rather, at best, he tried to mitigate the effects of the hatred Americans had for Native Americans and the desire such Americans had for Native American lands. But that is at best and beginning research tells me that that is not the case.
BTW, how many Native Americans were forcibly removed from their homelands during Jackson's Presidency? Or we could also ask whether Jackson fought in any wars against the Native Americans. In either case, we find that Jackson was not as honorable as the above article indicated. And that says something about true American republicans since the author declared that Jackson was such a person..