Walking across the rubble

I’m off to take part in a Walk of Witness in Edinburgh tomorrow – marking the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. Part of me wonders if there is anything more to be said or done about this most terrible of atrocities. But distance gives perspective

Have you read any of Professor Alistair McGrath’s writing about the links between 9/11 and the rise of the New Atheism, Dawkins et al. If the planes were flown by religious fanatics, all religion must be dangerous. If all religion is dangerous, then it can’t just be regarded as a matter of personal choice in an otherwise secular society .. it becomes something which should be attacked and destroyed.

Meanwhile I turned to Rowan Williams’ little book, ‘Writing in the Dust’ in which he reflects on what it was like to be there as it happened. His most chastening words are at the beginning:

Something of the chill of 11 September 2001 lies in the contrast, The religious words are, in the cold light of day, the words that murderers are saying to themselves to make a martyr’s drama out of a crime. The non-religious words are testimony to what religious language is supposed to be about – the triumph of pointless, gratuitous lovel, the affirming of faithfulness even when there is nothing to be done or salvaged