Failure of the Church on 911

On the morning of October 2nd, 2006 Charles Carl Roberts IV entered into a one room Amish schoolhouse, guns in hand. He held ten girls hostage, between the ages of 7 and 13, for a little less than one hour. Within that time he began to open fire. Five of the girls died from their gunshot wounds, while the remaining five survived, though they sustained serious injuries before Roberts turned the gun on himself. The motive of this shooting is something the killer brought with him to his grave, but what I would like to focus on is how the surviving, Amish families of those girls reacted to that horrific and tragic act.

The events of that day were an assault on innocence. None of the people associated with that school, and certainly none of the children themselves had wronged Charles Carl Roberts in any way. It would have been entirely natural for the parents and relatives of those little girls to cry out for justice, to voice their grief and rage, at least on the day of the murders. Our country would have understood and encouraged their desire to seek fierce retaliation for the suffering that they endured. But to our surprise, we witnessed a very different reaction than expected. Instead they did quite the opposite. CNN reported a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls said of the killer on the day of the murder: "We must not think evil of this man."

What would cause them to overcome the natural desire for vengeance so completely? Nothing but a sincere and complete yearning for the ways of God to be manifest in their lives. For Romans 12:19 tells us this,

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave the way open for God's wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

It's sad to realize that relinquishing our natural thirst for vengeance is the only properly Christian course of action we can take. It's humbling to acknowledge that the concept is foreign to most of us. One of the main differences between the Amish community and the rest of the Christian west has been in the application of scriptural teachings. The Amish take verses such as James 4:4 seriously as well, forsaking all friendship with the world, for the sake of their eternal treasures. We ridicule their "backwards" ways, we see this as a sort of squandering of Christian potential, condemning their society for closing their doors to the world, and hiding their particular light under a bushel, and perhaps there is a certain amount of validity to that argument. No one is without fault, after all. But rather than remove the mote of strict legalism from the eye of the Amish, let us remember for now that the body of Christ is composed of many members, all of which serve a purpose. I believe that those who choose to refrain from all worldliness for the sake of Christ are blessed, as are those who would use the tool of the internet in order to spread the gospel of Christ.

However this example of forgiveness is undeniably the hand of God at work, giving us a contrast, and allowing the Amish to convict the religious right of their sin in the wake of 9-11.
In response to all "God Bless America" decals, and all presumptions made about our nation being the world's representative of Christianity, I will share Matthew 5:43-45

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemies.' But I say to you, love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you. If you do this, you will be true children of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on good people and on evil people, and he sends rain to those who do right and to those who do wrong."

In the aftermath of those infamous attacks on America in 2001, arising from the ashes of our buildings, and out of our shattered sense of security, we as a nation faced a choice. We were the victims of a first strike, and it was up to us exactly how we would respond to tragedy. There were many roads of reaction in front of us, even though our war-hungry media and lying government would have us believe we only had one option, War. It was during that suspiciously short span of time between 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, while we were still in collective shock, that Americans went to their churches for comfort and guidance.

The American church failed it's people. Their response in that narrow window of possibilty is part of what will seal God's judgement upon it's wealthy and influencial leaders in the day of judgement. Not one mainstream preacher to my understanding spoke of forgiveness, or of the opportunity that our loss opened up to us, so that we might show the world Christ's love in a way that it could not deny. What greater opportunity to love our enemies could we have even asked for?

Our nation didn't crumble from their blow. We are too wealthy, armed, fortified and much too stubburn to allow such a thing. That much was clear even a week after the event. We could have overcome their evil so easily (and inexpensively) with good! That would have dispelled the call for jihad so much quicker than this never-ending war on terrorism. $40 billion a year would end world hunger, and the support of our enemies would have evaporated. Right after 9/11 we had a period where the entirety of the civilized world stood alongside us aghast to the atrocity we endured. they would have supported any decision we made. Ponder for a moment the world that could have been, if we had chosen love as our response, instead of visceral retaliation. Our nation has been herded down a path of darkness, and we don't want to admit or acknowledge the ugliness of it.

If you could allow me to recount a personal story from September of 2001, just for some perspective: I used to attend a south Florida televangelist mega-church, and one week after the attacks our regularly scheduled evening service was replaced with a televised time of prayer. At first I just sat in silent observation. Members of the congregation took turns in line to speak their hearts, and I witnessed a total lack of forgiveness in their prayers. They prayed for the families of the victims, they prayed for Justice (with a disquieting fury), they prayed that God be with Goerge Bush in this time of difficult decisions etc... After several prayers for "The crushing hand of God's wrath to fall on the responsible!", I got up and stood in line. As I awaited my turn I was hoping that someone, anyone else would go ahead and voice that need of true forgiveness.

When my turn came up, I was awash with uncertainty, and shaking. I just wanted to sit down more than anything at that point, and my voice was trembling. There was nothing holy about me, I was a sinner: timid, weak-willed, and driven mainly by the urges of my flesh. Yet my spirit cried out against that blood lust. Just like the Amish relatives of this past month, I was an example of 1 Cor 1:26-29

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

A taste of what is still to come...and this is what I prayed,

"Father, we have been struck by our enemies, and have suffered a great loss, but even that loss of thousands is nothing in comparison to the sacrifice of your only son. Give us the strength to rise above the understandable urge to retaliate. Remind us that we are never to repay evil with evil, but to over come evil with good. Allow your Holy Spirit of forgiveness to overcome us, and allow us to show the truth of your love to the whole world. I pray that we would stop and just consider what Jesus would do if he was in our shoes. May we seek first your kingdom, and not the blood of the guilty, no matter what they are guilty of. May we always look to you for guidance."

Forgiveness should have been the first and strongest cry from the church in the aftermath of 911. Yet even five years later, forgiveness is not an option for the established church. That should be the biggest alarm bell of all that the church is not within the will of God.