A Damaged Fortress: America After September 11
Photo by Steve Harvey via unsplash.
The day started like any other.
I was on a bus heading towards downtown Minneapolis for work while listening to the news on my radio. As the church neared the University of Minnesota, there was breaking news about a small plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. My mind went back to something I remembered from history; when a B-25 crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945. By the time I was near work, the second plane hit. Now I knew something was up. The rest of the day was filled with trying to work and listening to National Public Radio about what in the world was happening. There was a sense of not feeling safe. America has always seen itself as a fortress; a place that is protected from the rest of the world by two large oceans. September 11 showed that the fortress could be breached. So, it was not a coincidence that I heard a familiar hymn being sung in churches; “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Having just spent the last four years at a Lutheran seminary, I knew this song very well. Written by Martin Luther and based on Psalm 46, the hymn was trying to reassure a nation traumatized; yes, our earthly fortress was attacked, but we can place faith in God who is and always will be an impregnable fortress.
America has always seen itself as an exceptional nation. Our geography made us believe that we were safe from the horrors of the world. Even when we were attacked at Pearl Harbor or when we feared nuclear missiles raining down from the sky, we saw ourselves as protected from attacks. We hadn’t been invaded in centuries. The First and Second World Wars left the home front relatively unscathed. America faced the postwar years as the strongest economy and the future reassured us that our fortress was strong and the chance it could be breached it was slim to none.
Then September 11 happened.
I do see God as a strong fortress. The United States? Not anymore. That overriding sense of security, that belief that things could be easily resolved was gone. Twenty years after 9/11, our own mighty fortress remains broken. Many had hoped the tragedy might bring us together and it did for a time. In the months and years immediately following 9/11 the world was scary, but it felt like things worked. We still had a common purpose- I can remember Barack Obama speaking at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston talking about how there wasn’t a red America or a Blue America, but the United States of America. But there were forces that pulled us apart, forgetting to mend the wound caused on 9/11. The war in Iraq, the use of torture in the Bush years, the 2008 financial meltdown, and Occupy Wall Street all were divisive issues that pulled us apart and left our nation unsure of itself. Other events like the sad reality of African American men being killed by the police which was expressed clearly in the killing of George Floyd and the rise of Donald Trump showed a dark vision of America. We have hoped for someone that would step forth and lead us to wholeness, healing the breached walls. We go to the polls hoping someone from either party will save us. But our saviors couldn’t do it; they have fallen short of their promises.
America went from a nation with a can-do spirit to one where everything seemed broken. Nothing seems to work. We’ve become more divided in so many ways: red and blue America, rich and poor America, black and white America. The sense of unity felt after 9/11 is gone and we wonder if it will ever come back.
There’s even a sense now that the destruction of the American fortress isn’t happening anymore from the outside, but from within. The January 6 insurrection, where a mad President wanted an election overturned and a Vice President to suffer the consequences of not being loyal shook many of us to the core. The threat to America wasn’t coming from some dark corner of the Middle East, but it was coming from inside the house. We weren’t concerned about terrorists from Saudi Arabia or Egypt but from Texas or Ohio or West Virginia. January 6 has become a memorable date, just like 9/11. We all worry, just as we did in the hours and days after September 11, if there will be another attack — one that could be even more deadly and more destructive to the American republic.
Speaking of Afghanistan, no matter what you think about staying or leaving Afghanistan, how we left was not simply embarrassing, but gave friends and enemies alike the sense that our nation can no longer be trusted. We couldn’t even get our own people out before the August 31 deadline. We turned our backs as a regime takes over to impose a backward agenda in Afghanistan. We couldn’t save Afghanistan and we didn’t want to. President Biden has tried to put lipstick on this pig, but it’s hard for our allies to see us as more and more untrustworthy, leaving the Western alliance frayed and rivals like China and Russia emboldened.
As a Christian, I believe that God is my fortress that offers consolation and hope when things seem dark. But the American fortress is in bad shape. Our walls are damaged from injuries within and without. The roof looks like it will cave in. No one should expect that someone will come and rebuild our fortress. It can only be rebuilt when we as a nation are able to come together, knowing that as different as we are, we are united together by nationality and by the values found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Maybe September 11, 2026, or September 11, 2031, will find our nation in a healthier space. I hope so. Right now, it’s hard to see how the fortress will ever be made whole again.
