<img src="http://www.theologyonline.com/0911.gif" alt="" align="left" border="0">Attack on America: A Christian Response
by Bob Enyart, pastor of Denver Bible Church (partly delivered on live radio during the attack on Sept. 11,fully posted to KGOV.com on Sept. 12th, 2001)
Five years later does the following response still ring true?
Security
- Airline Security: The hijackings were not a failure of airport security personnel, but were a failure of security strategy! Hijackers will always be able to get weapons of some type onto airplanes, even ceramic or plastic knives invisible to metal detectors. Pilots should be armed and crewmembers should have access to weapons. As on Israel’s El Al airlines, undercover armed security guards should fly, at least on random flights. Also, police and government officials should fly armed. This type of hijacking would not have succeeded on El Al.
- Self-defense: Heroism on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania prevented that plane from crashing into the White House offices. We should encourage and teach self defense. Our war against guns has created a victim mentality. Pilots have heretofore been taught to comply with hijackers, as consistent with our victim-mentality war against guns. Guns enable self defense and deter criminals.
- Prosecution: Pass legislation to prosecute all members of known terrorist organizations for murder; and prosecute all supporters of known terrorist organizations for conspiracy to murder.
- Deterrence: If a foreign nation harbors or supports terrorists, America should dismantle their government if possible. Nations bear full responsibility for any act of war perpetrated by their terrorists. We should not just punish such a terrorist government. If possible, we should destroy that government. This will help deter future governments from supporting terrorism.
- Osama bin Laden: As the crises unfolded, I was in studio at the Information Radio Network during the hour when the final plane crashed. When asked who could have been responsible for this, I stated on air that the Palestinians would have done this, but were incapable. Rather, this terror was done on their behalf against Israel’s ally, and on behalf of the radical Islamic world by Osama bin Laden, the international terrorist protected by the Taliban government in Afghanistan. As the pastor of Denver Bible Church, I had no access to government intelligence. But I knew who did this because of the public promise and effort by Bin Laden to do just what he had done. The American government has long monitored him training terrorists to kill Americans, and to “blow up your airplanes and destroy your tall buildings.” Recently by videotape, he effectively claimed responsibility for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. Those actions already provided sufficient cause for America to attack the Taliban government and pursue Bin Laden by force and assassinate him if necessary or apprehend and execute him after trial.
Foreign Relations
- Israel: When we condemn Israel for punishing terrorists, we unwittingly take the side of the terrorists, and encourage them and terrorism generally.
- Respecting Terrorists: Treating terrorists as dignitaries and terrorist regimes as valid governments, invites more terrorism. When we conduct diplomacy with terrorists like Yasser Arafat we unwittingly validate terrorist tactics. Young terrorists see in Arafat a justification of their strategy, and hope that terrorism will one day bring them, or their compatriots, to the bargaining table with world leaders.
- Allies and Enemies: America saw the widespread Palestinian celebration, and the spontaneous dancing in the streets at the news of our tragedy. At the same time we heard Israel declare a national day of mourning. This contrast provides strong evidence of who is our ally and who is our enemy.
- Justice: America should fastidiously maintain justice in our foreign relations, for enemies have long memories. When we wrong a nation, we should confess and repent. When we punish a nation, we should do so swiftly and painfully and not drag out punishments for many years, increasing bitterness.
- Foreign Aid: Stop all foreign aid. Welfare is wrong, whether to individuals, to corporations, or to nations. And foreign aid is welfare to countries. Individual Americans privately and freely send billions of dollars of charity a year to other counties. But the government should not send national welfare, because charity must be freely given, not coerced. Forced charity, including foreign aid, creates unnecessary animosity.
Islamic Relations
- Fear: Countless millions of Islamic people fear America, believing that our immoral culture is threatening their own families. America’s culture is seducing the world. Arab families see their children attracted to Hollywood’s smut videos and satellite transmissions, and they fear that we will thereby destroy their families, just as we have destroyed our own. They hate America for exporting our immorality. An Arab teenage boy employed to do laundry at a western hotel sneaks into rooms to watch naked lesbians having sex in American movies. After having broken our own homes, they watch as our exported immorality begins to destroy their families. Our government should oppose all sexual immorality including pornography, fornication, adultery, and no-fault divorce; and defend sex only within marriage; oppose abortion and euthanasia. We should do right and thus rob the Islamic world of these charges against us.
- Hatred: Islam’s longstanding hatred of America should not be intensified needlessly. Hatred of America increased when Clinton bombed Arabs the night of his televised Monica Lewinski deposition. A media report at the time suggested that even a majority of American reporters believed that Clinton bombed Afghanistan and the Sudan as a mere diversion. Virtually the entire Arab world concurred with that assessment, believing that America’s planes bombed them just to cover-up a sex scandal. Clinton announced that was the beginning of our war on terrorism, but some of us immediately doubted him, predicting that the bombing would not be followed up, but was a one-time distraction. In fact, his war against terrorism started and ended that night; the bombing was not the beginning of anything. The White House press corps will remember forever where they were when they learned of the bombing. They were, as a group, in a theater, watching a movie, Wag the Dog. In that Hollywood movie inspired by Clinton, an American president involved in a horrendous sex scandal creates an artificial war to distract his nation. That movie played widely internationally, and had a particular impact on the Arab world. Yet, America’s congress never condemned Clinton for his behavior, never investigated, and never apologized. And the media did not condemn Clinton for this, and neither did the American public, nor her social and religious leaders.
- Conspiracy: Some Islamic fundamentalists encourage the killing of infidels. America should prosecute Islamic people for conspiracy to murder if they call for the killing of non-Islamic people.
Democracy Problems
- Limited Government: God gave governments responsibility only for infrastructure and defense. If government limited itself to its two just functions, thereby getting out of education, health care, farming, etc., it could better defend America.
- Full-time Campaign: Our democratic form of government turns our leaders into full-time campaigners. President Bush effectively was campaigning in Florida when the hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center. No one can govern from a third grade classroom.
- Focus: When the government focuses on education, parents lose focus of their primary role in educating their children. And when a government focuses on education, it cannot focus as well on governing. A successful business which branches out into thirty different areas typically does poorly in all areas, including its original core business. America must limit government to maintaining infrastructure and to defense of life, liberty, and property (through the criminal justice system and the military).
Cultural Problems
- Suicide: America should oppose all worldviews that promote suicide. Suicide is inherently destabilizing. When cultures openly promote suicide as an acceptable way to solve problems, they disable standard deterrents. For example, as the American media and universities defend suicide, we have a growing epidemic of murder/suicide. Harris and Klebold assumed that they could escape punishment for Columbine if only they killed themselves in the attack, though they delivered themselves directly into the hands of the Judge of the whole world. Those who defend suicide promote the shedding of innocent blood. We must oppose them.
- Kamikazes: September 11, 2001 was our own Pearl Harbor. Both radical Islam and the Japanese empire taught men that suicide, in opposition to Judaeo-Christian teaching, would lead to glory in the afterlife. In both attacks, the kamikaze pilots of World War II, and the Islamic zealots of Pearl Harbor II, normal men became capable of mass murder because of their eagerness to die in the attack. America should recognize every defender of suicide as an enemy of security. Suicide is inherently destabilizing.
- Energy Independence: America needs a national commitment to fully explore Alaska and all available lands and oceans for oil and gas, to move us toward energy independence. We should try to reduce the billions of dollars we transfer annually to OPEC and to some Islamic regimes which aid terrorists. The quickest way to turn the Arab world strongly against terrorism is to threaten to move toward energy independence with an emergency national mobilization toward that goal.
Conclusion
- Policy Wisdom: Right-wing Christians have long presented such policy objectives, but the secular world generally ignores such wisdom. Christians who carefully study the Bible are best qualified to teach the world how it should be governed. Let’s change our way of life as little as possible, and the terrorists’ way of life as much as possible. We can comply with terrorists on one point, if they want to die in this battle, we can assist them.
- Tune In: For further discussion of the attack on America, and to make your own comments, please listen to Bob Enyart Live via RealAudio online at KGOV.com and call-in on Mondays at 9pm Eastern Time to 1-800-8Enyart.
by Bob Enyart, pastor of Denver Bible Church (partly delivered on live radio during the attack on Sept. 11,fully posted to KGOV.com on Sept. 12th, 2001)
Five years later does the following response still ring true?
Security
- Airline Security: The hijackings were not a failure of airport security personnel, but were a failure of security strategy! Hijackers will always be able to get weapons of some type onto airplanes, even ceramic or plastic knives invisible to metal detectors. Pilots should be armed and crewmembers should have access to weapons. As on Israel’s El Al airlines, undercover armed security guards should fly, at least on random flights. Also, police and government officials should fly armed. This type of hijacking would not have succeeded on El Al.
- Self-defense: Heroism on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania prevented that plane from crashing into the White House offices. We should encourage and teach self defense. Our war against guns has created a victim mentality. Pilots have heretofore been taught to comply with hijackers, as consistent with our victim-mentality war against guns. Guns enable self defense and deter criminals.
- Prosecution: Pass legislation to prosecute all members of known terrorist organizations for murder; and prosecute all supporters of known terrorist organizations for conspiracy to murder.
- Deterrence: If a foreign nation harbors or supports terrorists, America should dismantle their government if possible. Nations bear full responsibility for any act of war perpetrated by their terrorists. We should not just punish such a terrorist government. If possible, we should destroy that government. This will help deter future governments from supporting terrorism.
- Osama bin Laden: As the crises unfolded, I was in studio at the Information Radio Network during the hour when the final plane crashed. When asked who could have been responsible for this, I stated on air that the Palestinians would have done this, but were incapable. Rather, this terror was done on their behalf against Israel’s ally, and on behalf of the radical Islamic world by Osama bin Laden, the international terrorist protected by the Taliban government in Afghanistan. As the pastor of Denver Bible Church, I had no access to government intelligence. But I knew who did this because of the public promise and effort by Bin Laden to do just what he had done. The American government has long monitored him training terrorists to kill Americans, and to “blow up your airplanes and destroy your tall buildings.” Recently by videotape, he effectively claimed responsibility for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. Those actions already provided sufficient cause for America to attack the Taliban government and pursue Bin Laden by force and assassinate him if necessary or apprehend and execute him after trial.
Foreign Relations
- Israel: When we condemn Israel for punishing terrorists, we unwittingly take the side of the terrorists, and encourage them and terrorism generally.
- Respecting Terrorists: Treating terrorists as dignitaries and terrorist regimes as valid governments, invites more terrorism. When we conduct diplomacy with terrorists like Yasser Arafat we unwittingly validate terrorist tactics. Young terrorists see in Arafat a justification of their strategy, and hope that terrorism will one day bring them, or their compatriots, to the bargaining table with world leaders.
- Allies and Enemies: America saw the widespread Palestinian celebration, and the spontaneous dancing in the streets at the news of our tragedy. At the same time we heard Israel declare a national day of mourning. This contrast provides strong evidence of who is our ally and who is our enemy.
- Justice: America should fastidiously maintain justice in our foreign relations, for enemies have long memories. When we wrong a nation, we should confess and repent. When we punish a nation, we should do so swiftly and painfully and not drag out punishments for many years, increasing bitterness.
- Foreign Aid: Stop all foreign aid. Welfare is wrong, whether to individuals, to corporations, or to nations. And foreign aid is welfare to countries. Individual Americans privately and freely send billions of dollars of charity a year to other counties. But the government should not send national welfare, because charity must be freely given, not coerced. Forced charity, including foreign aid, creates unnecessary animosity.
Islamic Relations
- Fear: Countless millions of Islamic people fear America, believing that our immoral culture is threatening their own families. America’s culture is seducing the world. Arab families see their children attracted to Hollywood’s smut videos and satellite transmissions, and they fear that we will thereby destroy their families, just as we have destroyed our own. They hate America for exporting our immorality. An Arab teenage boy employed to do laundry at a western hotel sneaks into rooms to watch naked lesbians having sex in American movies. After having broken our own homes, they watch as our exported immorality begins to destroy their families. Our government should oppose all sexual immorality including pornography, fornication, adultery, and no-fault divorce; and defend sex only within marriage; oppose abortion and euthanasia. We should do right and thus rob the Islamic world of these charges against us.
- Hatred: Islam’s longstanding hatred of America should not be intensified needlessly. Hatred of America increased when Clinton bombed Arabs the night of his televised Monica Lewinski deposition. A media report at the time suggested that even a majority of American reporters believed that Clinton bombed Afghanistan and the Sudan as a mere diversion. Virtually the entire Arab world concurred with that assessment, believing that America’s planes bombed them just to cover-up a sex scandal. Clinton announced that was the beginning of our war on terrorism, but some of us immediately doubted him, predicting that the bombing would not be followed up, but was a one-time distraction. In fact, his war against terrorism started and ended that night; the bombing was not the beginning of anything. The White House press corps will remember forever where they were when they learned of the bombing. They were, as a group, in a theater, watching a movie, Wag the Dog. In that Hollywood movie inspired by Clinton, an American president involved in a horrendous sex scandal creates an artificial war to distract his nation. That movie played widely internationally, and had a particular impact on the Arab world. Yet, America’s congress never condemned Clinton for his behavior, never investigated, and never apologized. And the media did not condemn Clinton for this, and neither did the American public, nor her social and religious leaders.
- Conspiracy: Some Islamic fundamentalists encourage the killing of infidels. America should prosecute Islamic people for conspiracy to murder if they call for the killing of non-Islamic people.
Democracy Problems
- Limited Government: God gave governments responsibility only for infrastructure and defense. If government limited itself to its two just functions, thereby getting out of education, health care, farming, etc., it could better defend America.
- Full-time Campaign: Our democratic form of government turns our leaders into full-time campaigners. President Bush effectively was campaigning in Florida when the hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center. No one can govern from a third grade classroom.
- Focus: When the government focuses on education, parents lose focus of their primary role in educating their children. And when a government focuses on education, it cannot focus as well on governing. A successful business which branches out into thirty different areas typically does poorly in all areas, including its original core business. America must limit government to maintaining infrastructure and to defense of life, liberty, and property (through the criminal justice system and the military).
Cultural Problems
- Suicide: America should oppose all worldviews that promote suicide. Suicide is inherently destabilizing. When cultures openly promote suicide as an acceptable way to solve problems, they disable standard deterrents. For example, as the American media and universities defend suicide, we have a growing epidemic of murder/suicide. Harris and Klebold assumed that they could escape punishment for Columbine if only they killed themselves in the attack, though they delivered themselves directly into the hands of the Judge of the whole world. Those who defend suicide promote the shedding of innocent blood. We must oppose them.
- Kamikazes: September 11, 2001 was our own Pearl Harbor. Both radical Islam and the Japanese empire taught men that suicide, in opposition to Judaeo-Christian teaching, would lead to glory in the afterlife. In both attacks, the kamikaze pilots of World War II, and the Islamic zealots of Pearl Harbor II, normal men became capable of mass murder because of their eagerness to die in the attack. America should recognize every defender of suicide as an enemy of security. Suicide is inherently destabilizing.
- Energy Independence: America needs a national commitment to fully explore Alaska and all available lands and oceans for oil and gas, to move us toward energy independence. We should try to reduce the billions of dollars we transfer annually to OPEC and to some Islamic regimes which aid terrorists. The quickest way to turn the Arab world strongly against terrorism is to threaten to move toward energy independence with an emergency national mobilization toward that goal.
Conclusion
- Policy Wisdom: Right-wing Christians have long presented such policy objectives, but the secular world generally ignores such wisdom. Christians who carefully study the Bible are best qualified to teach the world how it should be governed. Let’s change our way of life as little as possible, and the terrorists’ way of life as much as possible. We can comply with terrorists on one point, if they want to die in this battle, we can assist them.
- Tune In: For further discussion of the attack on America, and to make your own comments, please listen to Bob Enyart Live via RealAudio online at KGOV.com and call-in on Mondays at 9pm Eastern Time to 1-800-8Enyart.
