MEANING IN THE TRAGEDY OF SEPTEMBER 11^th

The Poison of Triumphalism

"Triumphalism" - the belief that one religious system is superior to all others, and is divinely ordained to supercede all others.  This belief divides people into superior and inferior, deserving and undeserving, respected and disrespected.  The attacks of September 11^th were a collision between triumphalist Islam and triumphalist America. 

Holding this pernicious belief, white American enslaved black people and decimated Native Americans.  Wealthy Americans exploit poor people of all races.  We are still two nations, one rich and powerful, one poor and powerless.  "We the people" is an ideal yet to be realized.  "Racial profiling" is an example of triumphalism in daily life.  Empires past and present, whatever their own religion, thrive on triumphalism as their own culture.  They use triumphalism to justify exploitation and inequality.

The America of "We the People"

Where was "racial profiling" in the dreadful moments and hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center of Sept.11, 2001?   Not in the heroic efforts of so many of the victims and survivors and rescuers.  Here was a time in which the ideals of unity and equality that Americans cherish as our birthright were fully realized in the finest tradition of public service wedded to personal need.  In the midst of immense suffering and loss, we find hope and inspiration in that there was an outpouring of sacrifice and sharing.

All Americans can look with patriotic unity upon the example of those who faced the horror together in a common bond.  We need such inspiration in this world where so many hate so blindly and with such ferocity.  But we also need to be reminded that our history has had its dark times, especially when slavery and Jim Crow robbed African Americans of life and freedom and decimated the Native American population. Their progress toward freedom and justice is not finished and the present hereditary disadvantages must not be forgotten. 

What of Islam?

Triumphalism remains a poison in that segment of Islam that brought about the attacks of September 11^th.  Many Muslims around the world have distanced themselves from the work of terrorism.  Many Muslims are good neighbors to other people.  They have deplored violence and respected other religions for centuries.  They seek to rid themselves of triumphalism as many American have. 

What Christians Can Do

Christians in America owe to the nation a better vision of Jesus with his values of fairness, respect, and equality for all people.  Jesus taught the kinship of all people and the dignity of the poor and dispossessed.  The world needs for America to be strong, but it also needs us to be a good neighbor.  Christianity must become an asset in building good will between America and the nations of the world.  That is our best hope for security and peace.

Jesus as Brother was written before September 11, 2001.  No one then anticipated such tragedies as have occurred.  The headlong rush to avenge this loss is understandable in the light of our national inclination to "Round up a posse and ride off in all directions to string up the killers before sundown."  But this is not a Wild West movie and George Bush is not John Wayne.  The world is a complex system of good and bad, giving and taking, caring and killing, building and destroying.  The "American Rome" will not find a world indefinitely content to submit to technological weaponry and "Dollar Diplomacy."  Empires have a way of breeding terrorists.  The American Empire is no exception.  In the past, the terrorists used pistols and home made bombs, but in the future will use high-tech weapons of stealth and massive destruction. 

The world as it is needs America as it might be, with a heart and mind to help and heal those who have been left out of the benefits of comprehensive education, health care and nutrition.  It is no idle dream that the resources for science, education and industry that we possess could lift large segments of humanity out of darkness and death and into light and health.  We could make science as wide and as deep as human ingenuity and needs are to be found.   But neither is it an empty threat that we could also make science a tool for enriching a few at the cost of a livable environment and a share of the earth's fruit for multitudes.   The future is yet to be made.  The present and future generations of Americans  have an enormous stake and an enormous influence on which course we undertake.  There are no guarantees that goodness will win.  This book is written to challenge and enable some venturous Americans to take the way of Jesus, a way of respect and regard for all of humanity.

Americans cannot expect Muslims to be any less triumphalist than we are.  Terrorism feeds on mutual hostility between triumphalist societies that see one another at inferior and unworthy.

"Racial profiling" is still a daily burden to many Americans.  It is part of the religious 'triumphalism' that infects American institutions.  This triumphalism is the name given to a specific set of attitudes and beliefs in which a claim is made for monopoly on truth and a divine right to impose that view of truth on everyone else.  The triumphalist claims that his truth and order will supercede all other truth and order, and that he has the right to impose them on all by deadly force if necessary.  The American version of triumphalism is visible in the violence used at Nagasaki, the second Japanese city atom-bombed; at Wounded Knee, as Indian women and children were methodically killed by Army gunmen; when Dresden was firebombed for no military reason; and in Birmingham when four young girls were killed in their Sunday School.   In these instances and countless others, our history is littered with the lifeless remains of people who were in the way of American power and careless purpose.

American Christianity has provided support for triumphalism in national policy by teaching and practicing division between those people who are deserving of all the advantages of wealth and privilege and those who are alienated from those advantages.  Determination of status according to race, gender and class in religious institutions has reinforced such separation in the political and economic spheres.  In our national climb from discrimination and injustice, Christian institutions have been progressive on some issues and reactionary on others.  We are now in a world that requires the churches to decide whether they will support triumphalistic force in pursuit of global hegemony or whether they will inspire in Americans the vision which Jesus gave, a vision of respect for all humanity and partnership in the realization of fairness and justice for all.