9/11: Where Are the Flowers in Damascus?

I was wondering what I might say about today. And as I thought about it I thought I might simply share a couple of thoughts from a much longer piece I wrote, mostly for myself, shortly after the haunting events of September 11th, 2001. Below you will find a couple of excerpts from that piece that still characterize how I felt and feel about this day.

“Yesterday, I was reminded that the Islamic faith has no concept of the doctrine of vicarious Atonement and so they have no foundation for authentic forgiveness. As a result they are drawn into the equivalent of offering continuous bloody sacrifices to appease perceived wrongs: law codes that require the chopping off of hands and ears, beheadings, and canings for infractions of religious law take the place of a loving God with whom they can be in relationship. For this they deserve more than our anger: they need our pity and our prayers. As for those who would remind me that mosques are houses of prayer and have no altars, I am moved to point out that the altars that the worst of Islam has set up in the last thirty years have been in our airports and on our planes, on our buses and in our schools, in a Marine Barracks in Beirut and in the harbors where our ships are docked, and now in the World Trade Center towers. Every one of these terrible crimes was committed in the name of Allah under the deluded understanding that such acts would guarantee the perpetrator immediate entry into Paradise. Islam in its fundamental and steadfast refusal to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord has set itself up as the holder of the keys to the gates of paradise and salvation. It is being argued and I suspect that this will continue, that this act of terror is a perversion of Islam. Yet the very subject of whether it is permissible under Islamic law to be engaged in an act of suicide bombing is a subject for legitimate debate among Islamic scholars. I recognize that many may disagree with any characterization of Islam’s fundamental religious tenets as lending even tacit support for such acts of terror. Yet, I am moved in response to ask this question. Where are the flowers in Damascus? Where are the tears in Libya? I saw such tears in Paris, I have seen the flowers in Berlin and I have heard our national anthem played in front of Buckingham Palace. The silence of the Islamic world is almost deafening. At this moment in time those of the Islamic faith have an opportunity to recognize in this act the utter bankruptcy of a faith that cannot accept Jesus as Lord. This is an opportunity for repentance not only here at home where America has so drifted from the faith of our fathers but also for the whole of Islam. May God so grant such an outpouring of His grace.”


“Our struggle against terror and those who would wield it as a weapon of warfare against the innocent must be rooted in love for the liberty that Americans and Christians hold so dear. In the days ahead we will do well to remember that the liberty we have long enjoyed in America was not won on Bunker Hill but on Calvary’s hill. Not on the lofty heights overlooking Yorktown harbor but on the barren slopes above Jerusalem. The foundations for our understanding of Christian liberty were not hammered out in legislative halls of Virginia and Philadelphia but in the council halls of Chalcedon and Nicea. Those who founded this nation and hammered out the parameters of the liberty that we enjoy did not invent liberty, they were the beneficiaries of a liberty already won. Our true liberty, our true freedom, was bought with the highest price of all, with the blood of the very Son of God, the God that we worship, the Incarnate God of all creation in the person of Jesus Christ. Our true freedom is found in the saving knowledge of the one who says of Himself, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Our liberty is rooted in the Truth that sets men truly free: the truth of the Christian faith that stands in stark opposition to all of the world’s religions in the striking claim that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and the only way to the Father. This is the wellspring of true freedom for if the Son makes you free, you are free indeed. Only in the light and context of such freedom can humanity hope to do the will of God. May God so grant us the grace to know His will in the days that lie ahead that we may remain steadfast in love not hate, in determination not bitterness, and in resolve not bigotry. We are called to go forth to love and serve the Lord. I pray that we will be granted the strength so to do. It must now become our fervent prayer that He will make us instruments of His peace and His justice in the days that lie ahead and in the accomplishment of the terrible task that has been set before this nation. Let us go boldly forth but do so with the name of Jesus fresh upon our lips, singing:

Jesus! Name of wondrous love!
Name all other names above!
Unto which must every knee
bow in deep humility.
Jesus! Name of priceless worth
to the fallen of the earth,
for the promise that it gave,
“Jesus shall His people save.”
Jesus! Only Name that’s given,
under all the mighty heaven,
whereby those to sin enslaved,
burst their fetters and are saved."

Lord, Jesus Christ, let it be so.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

As I said these are excerpts from a much longer piece penned some ten years ago and I find myself still asking, "Where are the flowers in Damascus?"

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