9/11 led to a manufactured consent to bomb Afghanistan. And Evangelical leaders were silent.
a review of the adults in the room, their statements on 9/11 and the lead-up to the war in Afghanistan
*Note: this article has been updated to include a response from Tim Keller’s ministry
That failure also disregarded the example of clergy who challenged the war in Vietnam three decades before 2001. Over the course of 20 years, religious leaders in the U.S. did not challenge public thinking about the war in Afghanistan the way Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam challenged the public 50 years ago. Religious leaders refused to follow the prophetic examples of William Sloan Coffin, Martin Luther King Jr., Father Theodore Hesburgh, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in calling on political, military and opinion leaders to ponder the tragic mistakes that were being made in Afghanistan.
Instead, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Land, Robert Jeffress, Paige Patterson, James Dobson and Franklin Graham were considered by journalists, including religious writers, as exemplars of strong religious leadership. Meanwhile, the same journalists — including religious writers — dismissed Jeremiah Wright Jr., Jim Wallis and Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Oakland, Calif. (and Allen Temple Baptist Church), who cast the only vote in the U.S. House of Representatives against the Authorization of Military Force in Afghanistan that set the stage for what became known as the Forever War. To make matters worse, U.S. religious leaders and congregations courted Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and other politicians and distanced themselves from Wright, Wallis and Lee.
Wendell Griffin had a perfect analysis in a recent piece published in Baptist News Global titled Afghanistan and America: Bloodlust and the failure of prophetic imagination. This coming weekend will mark the twentieth anniversary of the attacks on New York City. It will also mark the beginning of the “war on terror”, and wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
It will also mark the beginnings of justification for the domestic surveillance state, the capture, torture and indefinite detention. It will mark the hundreds of thousands dead at the hands of US troops and contractors mobilized by patriotism in the wake of the tragedy that was 9/11. Not to mention around 5,000 Americans dead and untold thousands wounded in the military adventure that seemed to only succeed in enriching defense contractors.
Looking back it’s not hard to see that our national leaders failed us miserably in the days immediately following 9/11. Ceding their constitutional obligations, every single member of Congress with the exception of Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) voted to give President George W. Bush carte blanche to wage war in our name. Rep. Lee’s courageous vote, accompanied by her impassioned speech on the floor of the House stands as a cultural marker and has been stood up in time to prove her as an almost singularly prophetic public figure of her time.
What should be a scandal, particularly for those of us who identify primarily by our Christian faith, is that the words of our leaders were, by and large, indistinguishable from the popular discourse.
Now, sure, as Griffin points out above, the Jerry Fallwells, the Pat Robertsons and the Robert Jeffress of the world had equal parts egregious and ridiculous comments, blaming gays, pro-choice democrats and the ACLU for the attacks of September 11, 2001.
But what about the adults in the room?
This is not at all an academic question. It was less than a month from the 9/11 attacks to the beginning of the bombing invasion of Afghanistan. In this short span of time the Taliban literally offered Osama Bin Laden to the Bush Administration. No dice. Blind revenge, not measured justice, was Washington’s preordained response.
In the evangelical world there were almost indisputably no greater voices who would have been considered adults than Billy Graham, John Piper and Tim Keller. Their moral authority was unquestioned by the white evangelical world at the time.
Surely if they would have born witness to the evil of both the events of 9/11 while at least questioning the bombing campaign of 10/7 - an operation that would officially last 20 years - their many followers would have listened.
But looking back for statements of any kind confirms Griffin’s thesis.
Billy Graham’s response was perhaps the best-known among all Christians at the time. His sermon was quoted endlessly and stands as one of his iconic moments for the last generation that heard his words. While many of those words were focused on reciting the gospel to his hearers in the wake of tragedy, he also had this to say:
Today we say to those who masterminded this cruel plot, and to those who carried it out, that the spirit of this nation will not be defeated by their twisted and diabolical schemes. Some day those responsible will be brought to justice.
The human heart longs for justice, it’s true. And there is more than enough evidence in the bible that justice is a theme Christians are right to hold as central in public life. And yet, for somebody as immersed in national politics as Graham, he had to know that all nineteen suicide hijackers were citizens of nations receiving aid from the US.
What does justice look like when a loosely-organized regional militia, not a nation-state, has ordered and carried out this sort of an attack? These questions don’t seem to be considered by Graham in this, or any context.
Piper goes a step further, however. In his statement, published a day after the 9/11 attacks, he makes the distinction between Jesus’ clear call towards nonviolence and the state’s responsibility to wield its sword in battle.
God wills that human justice hold sway among governments, and between citizens and civil authority. He does not prescribe that governments always turn the other cheek. The government "does not bear the sword for nothing." Police have the God-given right to use force to restrain evil and bring law-breakers to justice. And legitimate states have the God-given right to restrain life-threatening aggression and bring criminals to justice. If these truths are known, this God-ordained exercise of divine prerogative would glorify the justice of God who mercifully ordains that the flood of sin and misery be restrained in the earth.
Of course, it may be worthwhile to question what the words “restrain” and “aggression” might mean. It’s clear that Piper makes theological space for the national response that followed.
Perhaps even more pointedly, when the bombs started dropping on 10/7 there was no word from Piper.
As for Tim Keller, his sermon the Sunday following the events of 9/11 was far more personal. Redeemer Presbyterian, the church he founded, is intentionally located in New York City. He was speaking to his own people, many of whom had lost loved ones and were seeking to be a part of recovery efforts.
And so the sermon focused on the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. This is the story that contains the simple, yet profound (and easy to memorize for points in Sunday School) words, Jesus wept. Throughout the course of 45 minutes Keller gives his hearers space to mourn, indeed, even a pastoral charge to do so.
To his credit, Keller names The 700 Club (er go Robertson and Falwell) as expressing a sentiment that should have been unrecognizable by anybody claiming fellowship with Jesus. And while he does take a swipe on the type of analysis from the Left expressed that same day by Jeremiah Wright, Keller is careful in the sermon to dispassionately distance himself from any quick, easy moral judgments, like those he denounces by name.
And yet, at the 29 minute mark of his sermon, Keller seems to abdicate his role as a prophetic witness to the unfolding events.
What if New York became a community…What if the US really was humbled to realize we are a part of the rest of the world; we are not invulnerable but at the same time became prouder in the best way in the right way of being the democracy project that we are. See that’s what the best leaders are saying.
The proper response, according to Keller here, is to embrace a narrative of repentance (of unnamed sin) to lead to resurrection (of pride in the American “democracy project”). If nothing else it is truly fascinating that the same justification is being made in the pulpit of one of the most influential pulpits in New York City as was being given by the Bush White House.
I reached out to Keller’s ministry, asking if I had missed something, or had he remained silent on the military response to 9/11 that led to the war in Afghanistan. I received the following reply:
To my knowledge Dr. Keller did not make any kind of a statement in response to that—he usually doesn't bring up specific political issues or foreign affairs as part of his role with Redeemer Presbyterian; the sermon following 9/11 was a special circumstance.
Growing up in an environment where these three men were revered, sought out for wisdom and lionized (if not idolized), I only imagine what would have happened if they would have been vocal about what came next.
When we answered an attack by a loosely-formed militia with a first a bombing campaign and later a nation-building project that lasted two decades, resulting in an immediate return to power for the Taliban after nearly 250,000 deaths (71,000 being officially labeled civilian), where were these voices?
But more to the point, what has changed in the past 20 years? When the next attack takes place, whether by a terrorist group or a nation-state, and we sit in shock and grief at what just happened, will the Christian leaders of the time urge caution? Will they, like Barbara Lee, urge those seeking immediate vengeance to slow down and sit with grief before compounding death on death?
Will the next generation of leaders have the courage to echo Dr. Wright’s prophetic words, not blaming gays, not blaming the ACLU but blaming decades of foreign and domestic policy that has fueled such a backlash? Or will it be enough to go up to the line of calling for repentance without at least being curious about the sins that have contributed to radicalization against the US?
The fact is that as long as Christian leaders are disinterested in the way the US uses our power an influence on an international stage, whether in matters of air strikes, nuclear arms or the war on terror they will have nothing to say as politicians on both sides beat the drums of war.
Note: I have reached out to Billy Graham Association and Desiring God Ministries to see if I have missed any statement leading up to the war in Afghanistan. I’ll update this piece if I receive any response.