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I was going to let it pass. There was too much
of greater importance taking place in mid-September, and with the passage of
time the subject seemed like old news. Besides, while I don’t shy away from
controversy I don’t select topics for the purpose of taking a beating either.
I tell my kids I don’t have to do anything but
pay taxes and die, usually after hearing I must allow them this or that to dodge
some teen social trauma. So I know I could still ignore it, but Bill Clinton
has pushed me over the edge.
All right, even he can’t make me. Mr. Clinton
is a known quantity and nothing he told a Georgetown University audience this
month is surprising or out of character. I’m really more miffed at the
reaction.
But I digress. On September 14, before a sense
of national determination had replaced shock, Rev. Jerry Falwell was widely
scorched for comments made on Pat Robertson’s nationally televised show, “The
700 Club.” Robertson took fire for agreeing.
Discussing blame for the
September 11 attacks, Falwell said “The
abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be
mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God
mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists,
and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an
alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who
have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say ‘you
helped this happen.’”
Falwell and Robertson are
lightening rods anyway, but their timing couldn’t have been worse. Their
theology missed as well.
Not that God hasn’t used nations
to punish nations; the use of the Assyrians and Babylonians for that purpose is
documented in the Old Testament. Nor do I disagree that our society has
embraced notions to which the Big Guy would take major exception. Yet flatly
stating that any particular event is God’s punishment goes beyond presumption.
Sometimes bad things happen because the evil have as much free will as the rest
of us.
Flash-forward to Georgetown and Mr. Clinton’s
speech: “Those of us who come from various European lineages are not
blameless. Indeed, in the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took
Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it, and proceeded to
kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the Temple mound …
“Here in the United States, we were founded as a
nation that practiced slavery and slaves were, quite frequently, killed even
though they were innocent. This country once looked the other way when
significant numbers of Native Americans were dispossessed and killed to get
their land or their mineral rights … Even in the 20th century in America people
were terrorized or killed because of their race.”
Again America gets blamed. This time, though, the
media reaction was a national yawn. Why? It is too easy to charge bias
favoring the former president and against Messrs. Falwell and Robertson, and I
don’t. This goes deeper.
The national and ethnic sins Clinton believes
partly to blame are in the past. We can’t undo the Crusades, slavery, or
atrocities against Native Americans, nor is anyone responsible even alive. The
events can’t be changed nor the offenders made answerable.
Falwell’s grievances, however, are current.
Whether you think them sin or not, they are happening now. Accordingly,
Falwell’s list holds us accountable today; Clinton’s doesn’t.
My best guess is that the September 11 attacks
occurred because the perpetrators are evil and chose to act accordingly. We
make our choices too, but get a little uncomfortable when questioned as to how.
© 1997- 2002 Brent Morrison
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