I'm listening to Wayne Monbleau's series on the new covenant, and he makes a point that he's made before: Christians really blew it on 9/11. (Monbleau's web site is http://www.lovinggrace.org/).
According to Wayne, 9/11 presented Christians with an opportunity to reach out to people with love and the Gospel. Instead, they responded with judgment. I'm sure Wayne had Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in mind, since they said God was punishing America for taking religion out of schools, abortion, and homosexuality.
I agree that love should be the paramount concern of Christians. Maybe it was unfortunate that Falwell got interpreted as the Christian voice on 9/11. But I think that 9/11 should make us reflect on serious issues. Sometimes, it takes a tragedy for us to do that.
Why didn't God protect us on 9/11? We took our safety for granted. We saw ourselves as invincible. That's why 9/11 came as a shock to so many Americans. We were complacent, and, when we're complacent, we aren't drawing closer to God. But people recognized their need for God after September 11. Was God confronting us to think more about him? Did he want us to take a good hard look at our national sins, rather than maintaining our "go with the flow," "do your own thing" sort of attitude?
Why did the terrorists attack us? I didn't really accept much of the American spin after the event. Bush called them "cowards." Would a coward kill himself by flying into a building? He also said they attacked us because they hate our way of life. That makes a little more sense. I've heard that Islamic fundamentalists don't care much for Western secularism.
Some say that the terrorists did what they did because the West has hurt the Middle East with its continual interference. According to this line of reasoning, they were impoverished, and they didn't have much power, so they did what they could to strike at their enemies. I don't think that excuses what they did, for killing innocent people is wrong, no matter who does it. And we should also remember that Al-Qaeda may have its own ambitions for power, since it does seek to create an Islamo-fascist caliphate. But we should ask ourselves if we've done anything that's made us part of the problem rather than the solution.
It's like the 1930's. Hitler was evil. There should be no doubt about that. But we didn't help matters when we kicked Germany while it was down--with the Versailles peace treaty. And we may have been goading the Japanese when we placed an economic embargo on them. Did these countries have their sinful ambitions? I'm sure Germany did. But that doesn't mean we should make matters worse.