Great religious minds reflect on tragedies surrounding September 11, 2001. As America moves beyond raw emotion and religious sentiment, this show explores theological and spiritual reflection for the long haul. We examine provocative reflections across a broad spectrum of faith, woven together with evocative sound and music. Listen

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Read: Collection 1 | Collection 2 | Collection 3

Where was man? (October 8, 2001)
I listened to the programme while driving home tonight, and I was reminded of the phrase that I read in a book when someone asked at the opening of a concentration camp in World War II, "Where was God?", and the answer given was "Where was man?" I may have read this as something Viktor Frankl said and if I am incorrect, my apologies to the voice. But it has to speak for all of us. This was evil. This had nothing to do with Goodness.

Simone Brooks
Crockett, CA

No free will without suffering (October 6, 2001)
How can a good and powerful God allow suffering? That has always been a good and powerful question, never more so than on this particular morning, just days after terrorists have destroyed the World Trade Center towers, seriously damaged the Pentagon building, and snuffed out thousands of innocent lives. When the morning show news anchors, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer, put that question to their guest this morning, they gave voice to the cry of our nation as we lift our voices to Heaven itself looking for answers in the midst of shock, pain, and perplexity.

The question is a very good question, one which defies easy and glib answers. The answer of the Christian faith is not easy, and it is given through tears. If God is absolutely good and powerful and loving, nothing less, how can he allow suffering? Perhaps the deepest answer is itself an even more difficult question: "How can even a good, powerful, and loving God not allow suffering?" When God created humankind in His own image, He gave us the amazing gift which gives life and love meaning but which of necessity also opens us up to pain. He gave us free will. God gave us the capacity to choose good or to choose evil. Puppets dangling from a divine string would never make the wrong move or dance the wrong dance, but would their dancing have any meaning or joy at all? And if the terrible choice for hate and evil and despair were no option at all, would choosing for love and goodness and hope hold any real meaning or joy at all?

In a free universe, our choices are invested with deep meaning. Would the love of your spouse so warm your heart if she had no real choice but to give it? Would the hugs of your three-year-old daughter so light up your life if there were no possibility that she might choose to turn away? Would our love of the God of all joy and light mean anything if He had not given us the freedom to choose to spurn Him and follow evil and the Prince of Darkness instead? Ah, how terribly we've recently seen what happens when evil men pursue their wickedness with deadly force. But we've also seen the awesome power of goodness, fierce love, and even nobility in the eyes of the firefighters and police, medical personnel and volunteers, ministering to those hurt so terribly by evil.

How we wish there was another way, but God Himself could not create a universe where we could see the beauty of the one without the terrible possibility of the other. Christianity asserts that ours is a God, so good, so powerful, so loving, that through His own unfathomable pain, He gave His own Son to save us from evil so that one eternal day pain and suffering will be forever banished. "Weeping may tarry for the night," writes the Psalmist, "but joy comes in the morning."

Dear God, our nation is oppressed by the evil and somber shades of what we fear will be a long and exceedingly dark and difficult night. Grant us the faith, the strength, and the vision only You can give as we look up for the light of the morning.

Curtis K. Shelburne
Muleshoe, TX

God is always here (October 5, 2001)
God has always been here. He has already done his part to achieve our happiness. We are the ones who mess the whole thing up with our choices. Where is God right at this very moment, when thousands of children are dying from starvation? He is here, but we inhabitants of this world do not share with poor countries, and as a result people suffer.

Flavio Silveira de Abreu
Brooklyn Center, MN

We must change our ways (October 2, 2001)
I feel that God did not cause this tragedy to happen to us, but he has stepped back and he has taken his covering off of America because of our wickedness. We kick the old, our hearts are filled with greed, we work on the Sabbath, We are sexually immoral; he wants us to get ourselves together. He has made us a mighty nation and yet we have taken him out of the schools and out of our lives when in fact he created us. The Lord has come to investigate our wickedness, America. Change your ways.

Prenesha Weddington
Minneapolis, MN

Reinforced beliefs (October 2, 2001)
What I find interesting is that an event like this can have the effect of reinforcing beliefs. For religious people, this event seems to have strengthed their faith. It has strengthened my faith as well. My faith that there is no God. For me, saying, "He has a plan" is meaningless. Any all-powerful being who would let this happen is not worthy of worship. For me, being a person who does not believe in God, this event has strengthened my resolve in the opposite direction. In the roots of the Judeo-Christian tradition, when a terrible event would happen people would work to discern what was wrong with their way of living that was in such disharmony as to cause the event. Today, most of what we hear is "We're not meant to understand."

Kelly Lomax
Minneapolis, MN

Seeing clearly, finally (September 28, 2001)
As a lapsed Catholic and one who is constantly uncertain of her faith, I never feel sure that I have a right to comment on matters of religion. However, I had a very strong sense, just after the monstrous attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the downed plane in Pennsylvania, that the souls of all those who died, both perpetrators and victims, were rising away from the wreckage together, smiling, relieved to be away from the devastation, and embracing each other.

I imagined the victims and perpetrators looking each other in the eyes with forgiveness, finally understanding each other and wishing each other peace. At last, they did not have to see through a glass darkly, misunderstanding and hating each other, but could see each other face to face. May we all strive to see clearly now, in this scary hour.

Peggy Hense
St. Peter, MN

Making sense of things (September 23, 2001)
I'm sorry that I did not hear your entire program—just the end, beginning with the Franciscan priest. I was forced to confront the issue of the role of God in everyday life when our son Daniel died suddenly of an acute asthma attack one year ago, at the age of 13. When Kushner's book When Bad Things Happen To Good People came out about 20 years ago, I eagerly read it, primarily in search of an explanation of the Holocaust. While it was helpful in that area, I found that the book, and Kushner's theology, truly resonated for me in understanding my vocation, NICU nursing (in which I remain engaged). That is, all around me were little babies, and their families, suffering. In some cases, the infants died. In others, they would survive, but remain, for the balance of their sometimes shortened lifespans with serious disabilities. How to make sense of this?

When Daniel died, the "only" thing that was different from this daily confrontation was its proximity—now we were the "someone else" to whom these things always seem to happen. We were (and continue to be) surrounded by the support of family, friends, members of our congregation. I adopted the cause of organ donation and transplantation as my cause—being a nurse makes this all the more meaningful, as some of my patients have died for lack of an organ. I have met many wonderful people through this volunteer work.

Daniel, because of all the efforts that had been made to revive him at the time of his attack (immediate epinephrine and CPR by an on-site MD and paramedic, two ambulances, a helicopter to the Mayo Clinic) was able to be an organ donor. Many of his organs were transplanted, and today we carry on a wonderful correspondence with the 30-year-old young man who received Daniel's liver. In all of this, I have been sustained by Kushner's theology. I believe that God intentionally did not complete Creation. God left a little corner of the work undone, giving us the opportunity to be God's partners in Creation, and thereby act in God's image. This act of partnership is known in Judaism as tikun olam, finishing the world.

Since God gave us free will, it is up to us to choose to engage in this work. Whenever we choose to look away, to ignore the opportunity to give charity, to aid someone, to work to eradicate poverty, ignorance, suffering of any kind, we have chosen not to engage in this partnership, and, in the long run, choices of this type, made by innumerable people, result in the existence of those conditions that give rise to a Hitler or a Osama bin Laden. Too quickly, it seems to me, we seize upon such individuals as the "personification of evil," and consequently think a quick fix would be to assasinate the individual. That misses the point of our communal—and individual—responsibility to choose to help God complete Creation by choosing to do what is good. God doesn't make "bad things happen"—not natural disasters, not wars, not infants or 13-year-old boys dying, not terrorists flying into buildings. These things "happen." God is present in our responses to these events, and our efforts to prevent more of their kind.

Opal Lynne Rosenfeld
Minneapolis, MN

Can't escape beliefs (September 23, 2001)
Having flippantly described myself as an "escaped fundamentalist" for years, I appreciated this broadcast a great deal. In this past two weeks, I've discovered that there really is no escape from one's earliest beliefs. At times like this the need to make sense of the universe can't be answered by intellect or science. My immediate reaction to the attacks was very much tied to the last wars in Revelation—a certainty I have not been able to put aside.

In my search for a way to move on from that tragic day, I have particulary found comfort in the Gospel music of my childhood, particularly one song: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away", performed by Marlena Shaw. The old testament book of Job is the subject of the song and for me, listening to it over and over is about acceptance.

Jill
San Francisco, CA

Choosing evil (September 22, 2001)
God has been where God's spirit has always been—while we question God, we forget one of God's greatest blessing to humanity, the Freedom of Choice, which goes unnoticed by the masses. Every day of our lives, we have choice to choose good or evil. What God does do, to those that seek the truth, is reveal it to them. Surely we have all the same problem, either we choose to walk in light, or we choose to walk in darkness, and when we choose darkness, we are capable of the most henious crimes against humanity. Then we are in direct confict with the most profound laws of God. "You should have no other gods before me."

I am again reminded of an incident that took place when Jesus dwelt upon the earth, A wall fell down, killing serveral men who were sitting near. When asked what had these men done, Jesus replied," Nothing." Surely, this is a tragic moment in the history of our lives, but, what is called for is a deeper commitment of faith. We must not succumb to fear, but rise up with a resolve to live in honor of our brethren and sisters who had their lives snatched from them by men who were walking in darkness.

Thomas Van Leer
Woodbury, MN

God's broken heart (September 22, 2001)
As the buildings fell, all creation groaned. No groan could have been louder than God's, whose heart was broken as our hearts were broken. In God's infinite wisdom, he gave us the choice between good and evil. God is eternally optimistic that we will choose good, to be in relationship with him for the good of all creation. On September 11, the choice was evil, and separation from God and all creation.

Bonnie Wilcox
Apple Valley, MN

We welcome your reflections on the topics of this program.
Please share your thoughts.