Editor’s Note: The following first appeared in the November 2001 issue of Baptists Today, which is a forerunner of Good Faith Media.
By now I have read well over 100 editorials, sermons and other commentaries about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on U.S. targets that took thousands of innocent lives. They have ranged from insightful and comforting to misguided and scary-bad theology.
It is interesting how writers, preachers and others whose tools of the trade are words feel a need to be profound at such a time. Profundity, however, is really well down the needs list when a devastating event of this magnitude takes place. In fact, words are not nearly as important as silent contemplation and reassuring embraces.
But those don’t fill up a blank space on an editorial page or a 20-minute segment in a Sunday worship service. Some of us have to find words.
Now, with a little distance, it is possible to examine some of those words more closely that were offered immediately following the horrific events of September 11.
Perhaps most noteworthy is that the messages conveyed were really not unique to this occasion. They were—for the most part—the same biblical themes that have echoed from our pulpits and pens for years.
They are timeless truths of priority and purpose that somehow have more meaning now than they did on Sept. 10 and earlier. We have a renewed sensitivity to words such as love, peace, comfort, hope, service and kindness, and embrace them with more tender hearts.
But the words of God have always been profound. May we continue to have better-tuned ears to hear them and a firmer conviction to live out their call.
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Editor Emeritus of Good Faith Magazine and Director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative.