The Impact of 9/11 on Religion and Philosophy: The Day that Changed Everything?

301 Pages·2009·4.176 MB·English

by  Matthew J. Morgan (eds.)

The Impact of 9/11 on Religion and Philosophy
Also by Matthew J. Morgan
A Democracy Is Born
The American Military after 9/11: Society, State, and Empire
The Impact of 9/11 on Politics and War
The Impact of 9/11 on Business and Economics
The Impact of 9/11 and the New Legal Landscape
The Impact of 9/11 on the Media, Arts, and Entertainment
The Impact of 9/11 on Psychology and Education
The Impact of 9/11 on
Religion and Philosophy
The Day That Changed Everything?
Edited by
Matthew J. Morgan
With Forewords by
John L. Esposito and Jean Bethke Elshtain
THE IMPACT OF 9/11 ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Copyright © Matthew J. Morgan, 2009.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
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world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers
Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37540-0 ISBN 978-0-230-10160-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-10160-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The impact of 9/11 on religion and philosophy : the day that changed
everything? / edited by Matthew J. Morgan ; with forewords by John L.
Esposito and Jean Bethke Elshtain.
p. cm.
ISBN 978–0–230–60844–3 (alk. paper)
1. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001—Influence. 2. Terrorism—
United States—History—21st century. 3. Religion—United States—
History—21st century. 4. Philosophy—United States—History—21st
century. I. Morgan, Matthew J.
HV6432.7.I446 2009
201(cid:2).7—dc22 2009013792
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: December 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Edie and Lou, Denise and John, and all people of faith
Contents
Foreword ix
John L. Esposito
Foreword xi
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Acknowledgments xvii
About the Contributors xix
Introduction 1
Matthew J. Morgan
1 Aftershocks 5
Philip Yancey
Part I Islam and 9/11
2 An Altered Terrain: Engaging Islam in Post–9/11 Academia
and the Public Sphere 19
Asma Afsaruddin
3 A Struggle for the Soul of a Faith: Spiritual Islam
versus Political Islam 31
M. Zuhdi Jasser and Sid Shahid
4 How Did the U.S. Government Look at Islam after 9/11? 51
Liora Danan and Alice E. Hunt
Part II Other Religious Perspectives
5 Prodigal Nation: September 11 and the American Jeremiad 67
Andrew R. Murphy
6 G eopolitical Theology: Economy, Religion, and
Empire after 9/11 85
John Milbank
7 The Catholic Conversation since 9/11: A Moral Challenge 113
Laurie Johnston
viii CONTENTS
8 September 11 and the Jewish Vocabulary of Tragedy 125
Rabbi Jack Moline
9 September 11: A Hindu Perspective 135
Arvind Sharma
10 Dialogue and Disagreement in the Christian Community 141
James S. Spiegel and Ryan M. Pflum
11 Truth, “Faith,” and 9/11 151
John B. Cobb, Jr.
Part III 9/11 and Philosophy and Ethics
12 Justice: A Post–9/11 Theory 169
Ada María Isasi-D íaz
13 Known Unknowns: How Philosophy Has Responded
to Fear of the Post–9/11 World 189
Liam Harte
14 Generosity, Terror, and the Good for Humans 207
Jorge Secada
15 O n Moral Alchemy: A Critical Examination of
Post–9/11 U.S. Military Policy 221
Talbot Brewer
16 T he Day the World Changed? Reflections on
9/11 and U.S. National Security Strategy 233
Martin L. Cook
Part IV The Just War Theory after 9/11
17 Understanding Terrorism and the Limits of Just War Theory 247
Michael McKenna
18 The Just War Tradition Faces the Remnants of War 261
Mark Douglas
19 Pacifism and Just War Theory after 9/11 271
Andrew Fiala
20 To Debate or Not to Debate: The Question of Torture 281
Pauline M. Kaurin
Index 291
Foreword
John L. Esposito
As we approached the twenty- first century, many looked to the new
m illennium with great hopes and expectations for better times ahead. I
often spoke of the twenty- first century as the century for Islam and Muslims.
An exercise by an Italian- American in Mediterranean hyperbole? Well per-
haps a bit, but I believed that the West was in a period of transition. For most
Westerners who had had little interest or knowledge of Islam and Muslims
and thus post-Iran viewed them through the lens of revolutionary Iran, the
tide was turning. Americans and Europeans, policy-m akers, journalists, the
media, and the public had now been exposed to information about Islam
and the Muslim world for two decades through books, magazine articles,
school curricula, the media, and Internet. Moreover, American Muslims
(indigenous and immigrant or descendants of immigrants) were increas-
ingly far more visible in the public square.
And then 9/11 occurred; a staff member of our Center called me and asked
me whether I had my television on. I did not. Why were we all, nonexperts
and experts, the White House and the Congress, the State Department, and
the CIA caught off guard, blindsided? Muslim extremism and terrorism were
on the screens of many but few believed that terrorists such as Osama Bin
Laden would and could mount an attack on the Pentagon and the World
Trade Center Towers. A member of the Center’s Academic Advisory Council
at our annual meeting said that the Center had achieved exponentially more
than had ever been expected but then added, “Regrettably, 9/11 may have set
us back 20 years.”
In the aftermath of September 11, President George Walker Bush empha-
sized that America was waging a war against global terrorism, not against
Islam. However, the continued acts of a terrorist minority, coupled with state-
ments by preachers of hate (Muslim and Christian) as well as anti-M uslim talk
show hosts and political commentators have obscured our understanding of
the second largest of the world’s religions and of the mainstream Muslim
majority. The result is reflected in a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll, which
found that substantial minorities of Americans admitted to negative feel-
ings or prejudice against Muslims and favor heightened security measures
with Muslims to help prevent terrorism. Forty-f our percent said Muslims
x FOREWORD
are too extreme in their religious beliefs. Nearly one- quarter of Americans,
22 percent, said they would not want a Muslim as a neighbor; fewer than half
believe U.S. Muslims are loyal to the United States.
If many Americans saw a war against global terrorism, many in the Muslim
world saw a war against Islam and Muslims. Policy-m akers and the public
have been caught in the midst of a battle of experts and pseudo-e xperts with
diametrically opposed positions. Most analyses had a missing piece, asking
questions such as: How do Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia view the
West? Is there a blind hatred of our way of life? While plenty of experts were
willing to tell us what “they” think, fear, hope, and desire, absent was hard
data on the voices of the silent Muslim majority of mainstream Muslims.
Fortunately polling in recent years by PEW, Zogby, Gallup, and others
has helped to address these issues. Data from the most comprehensive and
systematic poll, Gallup’s World Poll, which covered more than 35 countries
with some 50,000 one-o n-o ne interviews, representing the voices of 1 bil-
lion Muslims counters much of the conventional wisdom. Many Muslims,
from North Africa to Southeast Asia, while having significant grievances,
also said that what they most admired about America, after technology and
scientific advancement, were its value system, hard work, liberty, freedom of
choice, rule of law, fair political systems, and gender equality. Overwhelming
majorities in every Muslim country polled support freedom of speech and
majorities in virtually every country also felt women should have the same
legal rights as men.1
The response to the impact of global terrorism has raised profound polit-
ical, philosophical, theological, and legal questions. What is the relationship
of religion to terrorism? Do the realities of the twenty- first century render
traditional doctrines of Just War theory, standards of international law, what
constitutes war crimes regarding civil liberties, and the use of torture in
interrogations now obsolete in an age of global terrorism and asymmetric
warfare? Critics charged that George W. Bush’s administration had ushered
in a period of “moral exceptionalism” side- stepping the prohibition of tor-
ture in interrogations (Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Guantanamo, renditioning of
prisoners for interrogation to nations whose standards are “more flexible”)
and circumscribing civil liberties in its use and misuse of antiterrorism leg-
islation and policies.
The net result is a world in which accepted norms in moral philosophy,
theology, law, and international relations have been challenged if not turned
on their heads. This volume plays an important role, raising and addressing
many of the questions and issues that are critical to an assessment of what
went wrong as well as what went right and to reflect the diversity of opinions
that exists within disciplines and among scholars.
1 John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims
Really Think (Washington, DC: Gallup Press, 2008).