The Fallout from 9/11 – Faith and Cynicism

It was a Tuesday morning, I was just heading out to our Lutheran Ministerial meeting (a monthly gathering of local Lutheran clergy). I happened to have the television on, and there it was – an image I will never forget – the World Trade Center twin towers on fire, and then collapsing into a cacophony of images, sounds and confusion. Prying myself away from the news coverage I made my way to the ministerial meeting where there was only one topic discussed – the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and how we as clergy could respond to this devastating day.
  

  
Now fourteen years later as I reflect on the changes 9/11 has brought to our world, I think not only of the increased security measures, a futile misguided war in Iraq, and an endless emphasis on the fight against terrorism – I also think of how it has eroded faith.
   

Since 9/11 we have seen a rise in cynicism, an eroding of faith people had in something larger than themselves – whether that be institutions, governments, or even God. More and more people do not trust the narratives that have been told to them, the over-arching narratives that unify our nations, our culture, our communities. This cynical attitude creates in its wake an “every man for himself” mentality. When I was a teenager we had a saying “Never trust anyone over 30”, now it could be rephrased “Never trust anyone, especially those with any kind of authority”. Churches have been caught in this undertow of distrust, as more and more people simply turn their backs on anything that claims any type of authority, including religious authority.
  

How did 9/11 lead to this growth in cynicism? One simple phrase answers that question: Building 7.

Two years ago it was reported that:

a new national survey by the polling firm YouGov reveals that one in two Americans have doubts about the government’s account of 9/11, and after viewing video footage of World Trade Center Building 7’s collapse, 46% suspect that it was caused by a controlled demolition.

It is noteworthy that almost half of Americans do not believe the official story about what caused the collapse of Building 7. If one in two people have trouble believing the official account about Building 7, then it would suggest that a significant percentage of people would also have reason to doubt the official narrative for the whole of the 9/11 incident.
  

Conspiracy theorists are a dime a dozen these days, and the internet helps them spread their deconstruction of official narratives to more and more people. The seeds of doubt are planted, and soon it seems safer to distrust all traditional sources of authority rather than accept the narratives that have been proclaimed through the government and corporate spokespersons.
  

It is no surprise that religion wouldn’t be immune to such rising cynicism, especially with high profile cases of religious hypocrisy being regularly revealed to a world happy to knock down straw men.
  

Since the grand narratives can no longer be trusted by a cynical society, we can no longer rely on such narratives as created by Christendom. Instead we must once again return to our roots, to the simple narratives of our individual lives. Trustworthy truth will be found in an authentic living out of a life of faith and love, in small but meaningful acts of peace making and justice seeking carried out in our local communities. But perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing, after all, isn’t that exactly what Jesus did?