Too much God?

When the Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed the ACLU and other liberals for Tuesday's attack, he proved he's America's answer to the Taliban. But that doesn't mean there's no place for God in our expressions of national mourning.

By Joan Walsh

Sept. 14, 2001 | I stopped into a church this morning to say a prayer. It's the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the victims of Tuesday's attack, but I do that every once in a while anyway, when I'm sad or stressed or need a quiet place to think. In my urban, intellectual, San Francisco cynical mini-culture, that makes me a bit of a weirdo. But my mini-culture excels at tolerance, so nobody makes me feel bad about my faith.

Thus I found Friday's rituals to mourn those who died in Tuesday's horrific attack a great comfort -- and again, in my world, that made me unusual too. A lot of atheists, agnostics and secular humanists were uncomfortable with the day's religious tenor, and watching a broadcast of the service at Washington's National Cathedral, even I found myself asking: Should there be so much God in these public expressions of loss and remembrance? Should a secular country gather its political leaders in the National Cathedral to pray?

As if to make it easy to answer a resounding no, Friday also brought the news that the Rev. Jerry Falwell and 700 Club host Pat Robertson are blaming the ACLU, gays and feminists for the World Trade Center attack.

"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," Falwell told Robertson on the 700 Club Wednesday, according to the Washington Post. "Jerry, that's my feeling," Robertson responded. Falwell went on to blame the ACLU and federal courts for "throwing God out of the public square." He continued:

"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.'"

This came on the heels of a vicious column by conservative hatchet-gal Ann Coulter, who wrote earlier this week: "We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

If I believed in a God of vengeance (I don't), I'd pray for him or her to smite Coulter, Robertson and Falwell, smite them with mercy but smite them nonetheless: hemorrhoids, maybe, for the portly Christian gentlemen; a year of bad hair days for the nasty blond Coulter. (A friend asks, "Does she talk to Jesus with that mouth?") But in the end they'll punish themselves. Falwell and Robertson have to live with their own idiocy: By their twisted logic, the terrorists were agents of God, and thus we should welcome their vengeance. Coulter has to live with her own meanness.

Next page: In a moment of searing national anguish, the country's deep religious faith is an asset