9-11 and American Decadence

This morning marked the eighth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center buildings in New York City by Islamic fundamentalists. On that day of tragedy, nearly three thousand people of all ages and ethnicities lost their lives in an act of terrorism that is still being avenged by American troops in Afghanistan. Most of the masterminds behind the attack are still at large, especially Osama bin Laden, the head of al Qaeda, who, in spite of an incessant manhunt, remains in hiding somewhere in the remote, mountainous wilderness of Afghanistan or Pakistan. September 11, 2001, was a horrible day for the United States of America, and it continues to reverberate through its people.

Curiously, the question of whom to blame is also still being debated. Although a surprisingly hefty minority believes 9-11 was an "inside job" by the U.S. government to incite the country into going to war for oil and to suppress Americans' freedoms to a greater extent, most people place the blame squarely on the shoulders of bin Laden and his fellow radical Muslims. Islamic terrorists have been plaguing U.S. assets, installations, and citizens for at least four decades, escalating their attacks as often as they can. In addition, they have targeted our allies all over the globe, from Israel to Britain to Australia to Denmark. Guilt for these atrocities is not hard to place.

If that is so clear, where is the controversy?

The arguments begin when anyone even remotely suggests that we Americans played a role in bringing these attacks upon ourselves. This morning on a Charlotte radio station, the host played a clip of a local Christian minister quoting Chuck Colson's May 4, 2006, "BreakPoint" broadcast titled "Decadence and Vulnerability":

Now, we want to be careful not to blame the victim—that is, to blame innocent Americans for murderous attacks against them. At the same time, let's understand how America's increasing decadence is, in a sense, giving aid and comfort to the enemy. When we tolerate increasing amounts of trash on television, when we permit pornography and gambling to invade our homes via the Internet, when we allow babies to be killed at the point of birth, we are fueling the flames of radical Islam. And when we talk about legitimizing homosexuality by granting same-sex relationships the status of marriage, we're giving powerful ammunition to those who use America's decadence to recruit more snipers and hijackers and suicide bombers. We're also making it much more difficult for Christian pastors and missionaries to win the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world—one more very good reason we need to clean up our act.

Colson plainly states that his intention is not to blame the victim but to show that America's increasingly secular and decadent culture adds fuel to the fire of Islamic fundamentalists' hatred. In their eyes, we are already infidels, and every instance of immorality that they see coming from the depraved West reinforces their belief of divine justification in putting us to slaughter. They are religious fanatics who, like a crazed rapist blaming his victim, feel that their horrid crimes are entirely warranted because their enemies had it coming to them. Colson writes:

Mark Galli . . . in Christianity Today . . . noted that Islamic militants are angry at the West for exporting "hedonism and materialism into their very homes through television, enticing Muslims to become religiously lazy and morally corrupt." Galli quoted a 1985 communique from the terrorist group Hezbollah which said, in part: "Our way is one of radical combat against depravity, and America is the original root of depravity." Members of these groups see themselves, not as terrorists, but as holy warriors fighting a holy war against Western decadence.

Had Colson suggested that a Christian reformation in America would stop Islamic terrorism against America and Americans, he would have been wrong. While he does suggest that a moral revival would modify Muslim impressions of Americans, it does not change the fact that we would still be infidels to them. They would still want to convert us to Islam either by persuasion or by the sword, for that is the aggressive nature of the religion.

However, Colson is a Christian minister whose focus is reaching and teaching the individual believer, not the whole society, although he would undoubtedly be thrilled if his teaching convinced all Americans to live moral lives. In his own way, he is doing his best to plant seeds of biblical truth that may one day sprout and mature, turning one person at a time away from the excesses of the modern American lifestyle. He knows, as many Christians know, that America's problems are moral and spiritual in nature, and if this nation is to solve its growing problems, the solutions to them must be moral and spiritual as well.

That being said, we would be foolish to leave God out of the equation. Notice Psalm 11:4-7:

The LORD is in His holy temple, the LORD'S throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The LORD tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain coals; fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup. For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; His countenance beholds the upright.

This is David's poetic way of saying that God is not playing intergalactic Space Invaders^® while we humans run wild over planet Earth. No, God is watching. He tests mankind to check where they fall against His standards. If they are righteous, He extends His loving kindness and blessing, but if they are evil, He sends punishment in various forms of destruction. He is not a sap who lets decadence have the upper hand for long—witness Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19).

There is plenty of blame to go around for the disaster of September 11, 2001. Certainly, the Islamists who perpetrated it bear most of it. Yet, we must also acknowledge that American culture is far from righteous, and God is amply justified in chastising this country. The question is: Have we learned its lessons?

Turmoil in Pakistan

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The world scene can change in an instant. With the assassination of former, two-time Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the geopolitical situation became more tense and uncertain thanit had been only seconds before her death. She was killed after the explosive force of an incendiary device strapped to a terrorist caused her to hit her head on a lever in the vehicle she was riding in. At least 28 others also died in the blast, and more than a hundred were injured. Nearly three dozen additional people have been killed in the ensuing unrest. Ironically, Bhutto was killed not far from where Pakistan's first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated in October 1951 and where her own father, also a former Prime Minister, was hanged in 1979.

As the opposition leader in Pakistan, Bhutto had played an important role in challenging, balancing, and therefore moderating the government of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in 1999 via a military coup. In addition, her liberal Pakistan People's Party (PPP) provided an outlet for many Pakistanis who are unwilling to knuckle under to the rising tide of Muslim extremism sweeping that part of the world. The latest reports are that al Qaeda elements were behind the assassination, specifically Baitullah Mehsud, a wanted pro-Taliban militant leader based in the South Waziristan tribal region.

Obviously, Pakistan is geopolitically important for two primary reasons: 1) It shares a mountainous border with Afghanistan, where al Qaeda Prime (specifically, Osama bin Laden and his operations chief, Ayman al Zawahiri) is hiding; and 2) the Muslim country is part of the exclusive club of nations that possess nuclear weapons. Should Pakistan fall to radical elements—either the Taliban or its sympathizers in the military and/or the intelligence service—the Doomsday Clock would surely tick several minutes closer to midnight.

So far, Pakistan under Musharraf has remained a useful, though shaky ally of the U.S. throughout the War on Terror. While essentially a military dictator despite his recent resignation from the armed forces, Musharraf has been able to ride herd on the forces of religious extremism, military dominance, and secular liberalism that are the major ideologies of his fractured state. He has had to crack down on the most turbulent tribal areas, enforce loyalty from his own army, and negotiate with Bhutto and her faction. He is in the unenviable position of being everyone's enemy.

Pakistan is intrinsically unstable due to its hodge-podge nature: It is made up of at least five different major ethnic groups (Punjabis, Afghans, Kashmiris, Sindhis, and Balochis); a handful of separate Muslim ideologies; two major geographic regions (the mountain region and the Indus River Valley); and a strong secularist tendency, especially among the educated and urban populations. The army, which accepts enlistees from all of these groups, is for better or worse the prime instrument of stability, due to its power and discipline. With Bhutto's assassination releasing rioters into the streets, martial law and harsh military responses to flare-ups of fighting and looting are likely.

To further compound Pakistan's problems, the upcoming parliamentary elections may be postponed as well. One major party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, led by another former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has already indicated it will not participate in them if they take place as scheduled on January 8. Bhutto's PPP, by far the largest opposition party, is now without a clear leader—in fact, it has never been without a Bhutto family member as its chairman. It may take weeks or months before a new leader is chosen, and even so, it may fracture into several smaller parties if it fails to reach a consensus on a new chief. Realistically, the Pakistani political scene will probably become even more chaotic.

This may actually work to Musharraf's benefit. With so much turmoil among the various political parties, candidates, and activists, he may emerge as the nation's only viable leader. Love him or hate him, Pakistanis may realize that, even though his regime has angered them in so many ways, he provides a measure of stability that is far preferable to the ravages of civil war. In other words, the devil that you know is better than the devil you don't know.

The United States, in its position as the leader of Western interests, would prefer Musharraf to maintain control and bring swift stability to his country. It has worked successfully with him in the past and knows which levers to push to get results. President Bush and his advisors know that al Qaeda wants nothing more than turmoil and confusion in Pakistan because it works best in such an environment. Through the Taliban, it could offer a stabilizing influence of a sort, particularly in the mountainous western regions of the nation, while procuring Pakistan's nuclear weapons for use in its cause through its supporters in the military and intelligence service. The U.S., then, will probably offer and provide intelligence and clandestine military support to the Musharraf government to help quell the disquiet as soon and as noiselessly as possible.

In a better world, the people of Pakistan would use the assassination of Benazir Bhutto to band together and expulse Muslim extremism from its culture. However, this is a world whose god is Satan the Devil (II Corinthians 4:4), whose hateful, destructive influence has deceived all humanity (Ephesians 2:2; Revelation 12:9). Thus, religious and political turmoil are part of the normal fabric of life—and will be until Jesus Christ returns to this earth to put an end to sectarianism and war by putting Satan away (Revelation 20:1-3) and ruling personally from Jerusalem (Revelation 20:4-6). Then, with Satan unable to broadcast his divisive attitudes, Christ will teach humanity His way of life that brings cooperation, peace, and unity (Isaiah 2:2-4). This glorious future of peace is why Jesus commands us in Matthew 6:10 to pray, "Your Kingdom come." Are we praying for it fervently enough?

Lost Perspective

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We are just days away from the sixth anniversary of the attacks on Manhattan's World Trade Center Towers by Muslim extremists. As everyone recalls, the dual 737 crashes into the buildings caused massive damage, and within just a few hours, both towers and a few of the surrounding buildings lay in rubble on the plaza below. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost that day, in the related disasters in New York City, Washington, and rural Pennsylvania. The finger of blame quickly pointed at Islamic terrorists, specifically Osama bin Laden and his organization, al Qaeda.

The U.S. response was swift. President George W. Bush and his administration concocted the War on Terror, and American Army and Marine troops, supported by the Air Force and Navy, made quick work of the Taliban in Afghanistan, forcing what has become known as al Qaeda Prime deep into the rugged mountain fastnesses of the northern border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Along with his chief lieutenants, bin Laden went to ground, and though al Qaeda has released several tapes of his pep talks to his jihadist followers, we have seen little more than a few digital images of him since.

In the spring of 2003, U.S. troops, along with those of its staunchest allies, invaded Iraq, and in a wink, Saddam Hussein, his sons, and the Baathist regime were on the run. Saddam's statue fell in Baghdad, and Saddam himself was soon pulled from a rat hole to stand trial and ultimately to die justly for his many atrocities. The Iraqis, when they were not killing each other, tried and only partially succeeded in forming a new government.

And there coalition forces have remained, mostly Americans but complemented by small contingents from other nations. It soon became known as an occupying force, accused of imperialism, torture, sexual assault, murder, and a host of other crimes and misdemeanors. The press began to use such ridiculous terms as "bogged down" and "quagmire" (can an army be bogged down or mired in a desert?), "insurgency" (can international terrorists be called "insurgents"?), and "exit strategy" (like the exit strategies from the Philippines, Cuba, Korea, Germany, and Japan, where American troops are still stationed after similar invasions?). In the eyes of many Americans—and frankly, many around the world, too—"mission accomplished" morphed into "more Middle East mess."

Almost before the dust had settled in Manhattan, the ugly head of political self-interest took over the country's perception of the War on Terror. Hawks debated doves. Patriots battled with globalists. Pragmatists fought idealists. Spenders disputed budgeters. The religious sparred with the secular. Of course, Republicans wrangled with Democrats, conservatives with liberals, and strict constructionists with revisionists. Everyone took sides for or against the government's actions. By the time the 2006 mid-term elections rolled around, the War on Terror and the Iraq War in particular had become the determining issue in many contested races.

Now we are in the midst of the Iraq "surge," an infusion of thousands of extra troops to quell hot spots and to give the fledgling Iraqi government a chance to get its footing. A successful surge would also set the stage for a draw-down of troops to more acceptable levels. Every pundit's breath is bated, it seems, awaiting the report on the surge by Commanding General David Patraeus on Monday, September 10, 2007. Will he give the surge a "thumbs up" and recommend troop withdrawals? More people are asking, "Will his report help the Commander-in-Chief or his detractors?"

In many ways, however, we have lost our perspective since those moments of clarity in the weeks following September 11, 2001. America, whether it wants it or not, is at war. Its enemies are clearly radical Muslims who have chosen to use terrorism against Western interests in the United States and around the world. These jihadists, most of whom claim some sort of connection to al Qaeda, are willing to sacrifice their lives in the cause of their religious fanaticism, to conquer the world for Islam. They will take any means necessary—including using nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, should they get their hands on some and figure out how to deliver them—to crush the Crusaders, as they call Westerners, and enforce the worship of Allah upon all humanity.

Under these terms, the squabbling over the War on Terror and the Iraq War seem trite and childish. In addition, these arguments often ignore what has been accomplished. Al Qaeda Prime, trapped like a mouse in a corner, can only screech out feeble threats and warnings from its wilderness cave. Mainland America has not suffered another terrorist incident since the World Trade Center disaster, while several plots have been foiled. Citizens may scream about lax border security, lax port security, and pointless, politically correct airport screening, but the fact remains that Americans have not suffered terrorism at home since September 2001. Finally, in terms of the Axis of Evil, Saddam Hussein and his bloodthirsty regime no longer exist; Iran, despite all its bluster, has turned down the wick on its nuclear program and is "negotiating" with the U.S.; and North Korea, though still ruled by the certifiable Kim Jong Il, is for now meekly knuckling under the demands made of it in the Six-Party Talks.

Sure, not all is peaches and cream in America. This nation has its problems, problems that it desperately needs to face and fix. Nevertheless, these concerns should not make us so jaundiced that we cannot appreciate the few glimpses of silver lining that appear every now and again. These little bits of hope for ultimate success should encourage and motivate Americans to press on with the fight in the can-do spirit our forefathers showed as they carved out a nation for themselves on this continent.

And for Christians, let it be a lesson that we can apply in our own spiritual battles. Though things seem to be spiraling downward around us, we can use our little victories as motivation to put more effort into overcoming and growing, turning seeming defeat into victory (I Corinthians 15:57-58).

What Is the Pope Up To?

Pope Benedict XVI, the German-born former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is the leader of over a billion Catholics worldwide and presides over a multi-billion dollar empire of land holdings, churches and cathedrals, companies, universities, institutions, hospitals, etc. His representatives, official and otherwise, are in every nation on the globe, influencing policy to the advantage of the Roman Catholic Church. He has hundreds of advisors and assistants, many of whom are among the most learned men on earth. He sits atop an organization that wields power and influence far beyond the confines of tiny Vatican City in Rome.

If he has all this wealth, knowledge, and authority behind him, why did he make such a colossal blunder in his comments at Regensburg University in Germany on September 12? Did he not know that even quoting a fourteenth-century Christian emperor's anti-Islamic remark would ignite protests and perhaps violence as well across the Muslim world?

Without a doubt.

The Pope, who turned 79 in April 2006, has observed the world long enough to be able to predict accurately just how his audiences will react to his ideas. The Vatican, long steeped in both politics and cultural sensitivity, understands the hair-trigger reactions of Islamic fundamentalists to anything even remotely offensive to "the religion of peace" or its prophet, Muhammad—remember that the furor over the Danish cartoons erupted just months ago. If his words, then, were not a thoughtless blunder, what were they designed to do? Why did he intentionally make them? What is the Pope up to?

There are probably at least two answers to these questions. The first is contained in the public response to Muslim demands of the Pope to apologize to the faithful for his "outrageous slander" of Muhammad. In his remarks to invitees to a meeting at his summer residence near Rome on September 25, the Pope regretted that his comments offended Muslims, yet he went on to explain briefly that Christians and Muslims "must learn to work together . . . to guard against all forms of intolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence."

A reading of his Regensburg speech makes it plain that this was his intention all along. Notice this passage:

The [Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologos II, a Christian] must have known that Sura 2,256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." . . . But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Quran, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, . . . he addresses his interlocutor . . . on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death. . . ."

Here he introduces his real subject, the relationship of reason and faith in religion. Muslim extremists—and frankly most Muslims period—have abandoned reason in their wholehearted devotion to Islam, and the result has been conflict, destruction, and death. On the other side, Western Christianity has rejected faith in favor of rationalism, producing cultural relativism and an essentially godless society. Benedict's speech was designed to steer a course toward the future between the two extremes.

At this point, the second answer to the why of the Pope's intentions comes to the fore. Upon ascending to the pontificate, Benedict dedicated himself to returning Europe to fundamental Christian values in response to increasing secularization. In a May 1996 address titled "Relativism: The Central Problem for Faith Today," he noted, presaging his papal theme:

Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of education is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own ego.

To counter this creeping narcissism, he recommends Europe's re-Christianization, urging Europeans "to open ourselves to this friendship with God . . . speaking to him as to a friend, the only One who can make the world both good and happy. . ." ("St. Josemaría: God Is Very Much at Work in Our World Today," L'Osservatore Romano, October 9, 2002). In early 2006, this theme still on his mind, he reiterated, "It is time to reaffirm the importance of prayer in the face of the activism and the growing secularism of many Christians . . ." ("Friendship with God," Zenit News, February 7, 2006).

In this light, his remarks at Regensburg were a rallying cry to Europe to reject the fanatical, violent faith of its burgeoning Muslim minority as well as the sterile, empty secularism of modern society—and to embrace the reasonable, traditional, and beneficial faith of Christianity. By doing so, he sets up himself and the Roman Catholic Church as sound-minded bastions of European solidarity and strength.

Despite the violence his remarks caused, he has calculated that they were worth the turmoil so that he could gauge, not the Muslim reaction, which was predictable, but the European response. He is hoping to see a shift in attitudes toward the Catholic Church and the papacy to defend Christendom from the ongoing Islamic assault. So far—and granted, his remarks still echo across the Continent—he has seen nothing from secular Europe to give him hope.

So There Has Been Another Terror Strike

A week and a day have hustled down the track since the 7/7 bombings in London. While the four bombs did not destroy nearly what the 9/11 airplanes did nor kill nearly as many people, they still did significant damage to bodies, bricks, and psyches in Great Britain. With more than 50 dead and several hundred wounded, they aroused the attention of Londoners fixated on the Live 8 concerts, the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, and London's recent victory over Paris in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games decision.

I happened to be in France on a church visit when the bombings occurred, giving me the opportunity to "take the temperature" of the average European on the street. Though the common reaction was not, "Oh, yeah? Another terrorist bombing? I'll have a cappuccino and a croissant, thanks," it was nonetheless unremarkable. I got the distinct impression—not from our members but from those with whom I interacted in airports and train stations in France and The Netherlands—that this was just another bombing.

I had to pass through a major Paris Metro station, Gare du Nord, Charles de Gaulle airport, and Amsterdam's Schipol airport the day after the bombings, and though the security was a little tighter than normal—instead of seeing a couple of machine-gun-toting soldiers patrolling the corridors, I saw several—passengers were calmly making their connections. I had the chance to speak with a couple of Britons on a train, and they were essentially unfazed by the attacks. Essentially, their reaction was, "This is the world we live in."

The news reports that I saw—on BBC World, primarily—seemed to support their calm acceptance of terrorism as the status quo. From Tony Blair to the common London commuter, the British stiff upper lip was the typical comment, spoken in a well-modulated, calm voice: "We will not let this bother us. We will persevere. We will not give the terrorists the victory. Life goes on." There may be little or nothing wrong with a reaction like this, but it is curious in its near-apathy. Perhaps it comes across as strange and weak to us in comparison to the average American's reaction after 9/11, which contained a great deal more outrage: "Let's roll! These people are going to pay for what they've done!"

Our understanding of their nearly non-reaction has to factor in Europe's long history of terrorism. The United States has had a long-distance relationship with terror; though the federal government, particularly the military, has dealt with terrorists for decades, only in 1993 in the first World Trade Center bombing did the militant, fundamentalist Muslims begin to strike on American soil. Europe, however, has been dealing with terrorism—and not just Islamic but homegrown terrorism—for decades. Britain's long struggle with the Irish Republican Army goes back several generations, while other European nations have contended with their own revolutionary factions at least since the beginning of the Cold War. Violent riots, shootings, car bombs, mail bombs, kidnappings, and other forms of terrorism occur with such regularity that the general populace has become somewhat inured to them, even those on the scale of last Thursday's atrocities.

This may help to explain why so many Europeans criticize America's War on Terror as an overreaction: They are far past the "fight or flight" reaction and deep into acceptance of the situation as "normal" or at least "commonplace." Since none of the measures taken over the past decades has stemmed the terror tide, they feel that the reasonable, mature response is to shrug and move on. Do not give the terrorists cause to gloat. America's volatile reaction, then, is thought to be childish and counterproductive. It will only incite more terrorism, they say.

We need to take this contrast into consideration from a Christian standpoint. How do we react to the spiritual equivalents of acts of terrorism—trials, temptations, persecutions, etc.? Do we, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, get up, brush ourselves off, and go about our business as if nothing happened? Or are we so offended and outraged that we stand up with our fists balled and a resolute gleam in our eyes? Do we mumble, "Not again," or do we shout, "That's it! I've had enough!"?

Truly, "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal" (II Corinthians 10:4), so our fight is not the kind the American government wages against Islamic terrorists. But the martial spirit is no less necessary in our fight against sin and the allurements of Satan and his world. The Bible is full of military allusions: from putting on the armor of God (Ephesians 6:13) to "endur[ing] hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (II Timothy 2:3). The Christian cannot be passive or indifferent to the very real struggle "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12).

Peter calls for steadfast resistance (I Peter 5:8-9), and Paul commands us pull down strongholds and cast down everything "that exalts itself against the knowledge of God," capturing and punishing any sort of disobedience left in us (II Corinthians 10:4-6). Jesus Christ Himself is portrayed as a great Captain of spiritual armies, out of whose mouth goes a sword used to strike and rule (Revelation 19:15; see Hebrews 4:12).

Christianity is a religion of action, not passivity. God's children need to be alert and prepared to react decisively to the enemy's attacks, wherever and whenever they may occur. "Be sober, be vigilant," says Peter in I Peter 5:8, and Paul writes, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light" (Romans 13:12).

Sounds like "fighting words" to me.