September 11, 2001
Two of the best-known Religious Right leaders, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, framed the 9/11 attacks as divine judgment; others cast the wars that followed in religious terms. The event accelerated both pro-war theology and Christian nationalist claims on American identity.
View in the interactive map →Within days of September 11, 2001, Jerry Falwell Sr. and Pat Robertson gave an interview in which Falwell said the attacks were God's punishment for 'the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians... the ACLU, People for the American Way.' Robertson agreed. Both later offered partial retractions, but the framework had been stated: America's suffering was caused by internal moral enemies. This was not simply a moment of bad pastoral judgment. It was the consistent logic of Christian nationalism applied to a national trauma. If America is a covenant nation under God's protection, then catastrophe must indicate covenant violation. The enemies within (feminists, LGBTQ people, secular liberals) became theologically responsible for the attacks. Simultaneously, the war that followed was framed by significant segments of the evangelical world as a holy war. Lt. Gen. William Boykin, speaking in uniform at churches, described the enemy as Satan and said of a Somali warlord, 'I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol'; a Pentagon inspector general later found he had broken rules in making the speeches. Franklin Graham called Islam 'a very evil and wicked religion.' The post-9/11 period saw Christian nationalism's pro-war theology and its domestic culture war fuse completely: America was God's nation, under attack from without (Islam) and within (secular liberals), and the response was righteous force in both directions.
Themes this entry appears in
Connections from September 11, 2001
- influenced → Bush / Iraq War Evangelical Framing (2002) — Bush's January 29, 2002 State of the Union, his first after the September 11 attacks, grouped Iraq with Iran and North Korea as an 'axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world,' framing the coming confrontation with Iraq as part of the response to terrorism.
Connections to September 11, 2001
- Jerry Falwell Sr. exploited (2001) — Falwell stated on Robertson's 700 Club that the 9/11 attacks were God's punishment for pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU, and People for the American Way. This framing cast domestic political opponents as responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans.
- Pat Robertson exploited (2001) — Robertson agreed with Falwell's framing on air, reinforcing the claim that America's tolerance of LGBTQ people, feminists, and secular institutions had removed God's protective covering.
Sources
- Pentagon finds official broke speaking rules — NBC News / Reuters (2004)
- The holy warrior — CBS News (2003)
- Jesus and John Wayne — Kristin Kobes Du Mez (2020), pp. 190-210