Faith Works 9-9-06
Jeff Gill

Sept. 9 – 2006, or 2001?

Five years later, and what is different?
For those who have been to Iraq or Afghanistan, and especially for those who have had those they love go and not return, much has changed. For the rest of us, I wonder. I really do.
A few weeks ago, five years ago, I was driving back from my last church camp responsibility of the summer, and listening to the one station that I could get on that stretch of road. The host was talking, on and on and on, about Chandra Levy and the congressman suspected in her disappearance. As I wondered if he had absolutely nothing else to talk about, he went on to discuss the dating travails of either Jenniston or Jlo or Beyond-saying. I forget.
At any rate, it was a beautiful day, and Columbus area stations began to come in with music I liked. Then I got home, and shuffled through a pile of papers and magazines, most of which had cover stories on shark attacks. "Could You Be At Risk?" shouted the headlines, and I hope I wasn’t too casual about the miseries of others when thinking, "not in Licking County, I’ll bet."
Last night, this year, a host on cable TV sternly asked me, in regard to stingray barbs, "Could you be at risk?"
George Barna is a leading pollster in the Christian community, having worked for years on market research for a little bizness called Disney. He did a specific survey which was announced last week, telling many of us what we already knew. "9-11 had no appreciable impact on faith for Americans."
I was wrong five years ago. I really thought that we would see a new seriousness, a healthy seriousness in this land, and in churches, about our calling to respond to crisis today with timeless teaching, our need to promote better understanding of a complex world and where a simple faith can change it.
Yes, I thought it would get a few more people to church, too, not that any pastor saw that as a good or God-sent thing, but a situation that God could craft good out from. What pretty much every church I know saw was two weeks of attendance spike, and then a soft "whooshing" sound as the bubble deflated.
Barna’s data says that was nationwide, the two week up-down thing. If it promoted any further reflection on why God would allow evil acts to play out on the earthly stage, or what my role in confronting anger and destructive vengeance would be, it doesn’t show up in the polling data. Apparently some individual responses, like Pat Tillman or Oliver Stone, were the exception and not the rule.
And no one has to tell you about the pictures of Baby Suri, do they?
When the planes hit, I was in a meeting, at a church, working on a co-operative ministry project. When I first heard what was going on, I was in my car on Rt. 16 heading to a meeting with the chaplain at Denison. After we got together, and huddled around a TV with many others, and watched the first tower collapse, we hurried to a gathering of clergy where we began to plan what a prayer service for that evening would look like. Then I left them to their details, and drove back to my (then) church and opened the doors, where people began showing up looking for a place to pray within minutes.
That night, hundreds showed up from five or six churches and some from none, but we prayed and reflected together on what God asked of us in a situation like this. Most of us left still rattled and worried, but a bit more hopeful.
Looking back, at lest for me, the church as a whole and my faith was doing what it should have been about on 9-11, in 2001.
Maybe we didn’t need much to change from five years ago, looking back on that night, so much as we needed something to grow. A wider vision, and a more solid hope based on a broader community. We still need that to happen, and we still can be part of that growth.
And we don’t need Hollywood baby pictures, unless they’re your grandkids. Then you can just show them to me in person, and not on TV. They grow up fast, don’t they?

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; offer him your perspective at knapsack77@gmail.com.