9/11 • 10 Years Later

“Eventually, September the 11th will be a date on the calendar. It will be like Pearl Harbor Day. For those of us who lived through it, it will be a day we’ll never forget.” – Former President George W. Bush, in an interview with the National Geographic Society, 2011

Time passes. The older I get, the more I realize that time passes, and seems to pass more quickly each year. Today’s events are tomorrow’s memories, and tomorrow’s memories soon become historical events. I was a freshman in high school during the 40th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This year marks 150 years since the start of the American Civil War. Next April will mark the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking.

And then there is today: The 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

The September 11th attacks are still emotion-laden memory for most of us, but it will not be many years before the events of that day become just another item in a newspaper’s “This Day in History” feature – an important item, to be sure, but, still, just another historical event, like Pearl Harbor or the Titanic.

And yet, near or far, minor or momentous, anniversaries are important. They allow us to reexamine things; things that we think, things that we feel, things that we know. And to reexamine these things in the light of what we have learned since.

I would urge you to spend some time today in quiet reflection on the events from 10 years ago. May I suggest the following video, a panel discussion from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, as a “jumpstart” to your reflections?

911 Panel Discussion from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

Atom Bombs Save Lives! (And, Then Again, They Don't...)

Sixty-six years ago today, the United States dropped the first of only two atomic weapons ever used "in anger," i.e. for real, in battle, as weapons.

80,000 people died instantly in Hiroshima, with another 60,000 to die days, weeks, months, and even years later from the effects of the radiation burns they suffered that day. In total, it is estimated that 140,000 to 160,000 people died as a direct result of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Another 90,000 would die 3 days later, when the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

The United States War Department estimated that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would result in 500,000 to 1,000,000 American casualties, and at least twice that many Japanese casualties. Ending the war quickly saved 1.5 to 3 million lives, so, in that sense, the atom bombs saved many more lives than they ended.

But, then again, almost everybody who would have died in the invasion of Japan is now dead. Within the next 10 or so years, the entire WWII generation will have passed away. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, wars do not increase death, since 100% of us will die. All war does is concentrate death into a smaller space and time. But children were born who would not have been, if their parents had died in that invasion, so their lives, too, were, in a sense, spared by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So, in the light of history and the harsh math that a military planner must use, the atomic bombing of Japan saved a great many lives. But, also, in the harsh reality that, in a post-Genesis-3 world, everyone is under a sentence of death, the end of another war did nothing to stop the death toll that sin exacts.

The fact that all are sinners and that the just punishment for sin is death is the Bad News that makes the Good News so very, very good!

Um... Uh...

Wow... I've got a blog... Who knew?

I think I'll do something with this sometime soon...

The truth is that I've been very busy lately. I've not forgotten about the blog, and I've got stuff I want to write, but time just has a way of filling up quickly, as I'm sure many of you can testify to, as well. I just wanted to let y'all know that I've been missing you, and I'll be back soon!

(Sad... I just blogged about blogging...)

Ronald Reagan on the 4th of July

Here are some thoughts from Ronald Reagan from July 4, 1983.