Lawsuit Over The 9/11 Cross

I was watching a news report on the 9/11 museum slated to open.  One of the displays is going to be a cross, two pieces of structural steel that became this symbol of the Christian faith and a symbol of hope to many of those working at Ground Zero.  And it was the subject of a lawsuit to prevent it being displayed.

According to the Christian Post online, "New Jersey-based American Atheists Inc. filed a lawsuit in 2011 against the planned presentation of the cross-shaped beam, arguing it will impose religion "through the power of the state." "  Somehow, this is to "Christianize" 9/11, the argument goes on to say.

Now, these reports were back in March and April, the news report today said the lawsuit was still open, I could not find more recent articles after a very cursory search of  "Google."

Usually, I am a person to accommodate the questions and arguments of people who disagree with or speak against my faith.  The purpose of this blog, in part, is to talk about how the faith is portrayed in the popular media.  It takes a lot to make me angry.  This makes me angry.

This is like the "keep Christ in Christmas" argument that shows up every year in some form or other.  This is like the lawsuits to keep  a crèche off public property or strip the Ten Commandments away from legal institutions or God knows what else.  Most of the time, I can dismiss such things because, frankly, there are more important things that I have to put my energy into.  But 9/11 occupies a unique place in my faith and my psyche.

What I take offence to is in the presumption that my faith is seeking government power to expand its  presence and control in this country.  Thomas Jefferson, in his Presidential inaugural address, said "And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions."

We have the FREEDOM of religion in this country.  That was the answer of our Founding Fathers to the religious intolerance, persecutions, and wars of Europe.  The answer was NEVER to sideline religion, to stick it in a corner, to allow a secular mentality to force it to the margins.  That is the message that we should be celebrating.  That is the story that this cross from Ground Zero should be telling. 

We have gotten very paranoid as a nation about religious extremism, and with good reason.  There are violent Christian-avowing extremist groups in our nation, including the KKK and any number of 'militia's.  There are Christian leaders who see the use of political power and influence as valid tools of evangelism and the extension of a blended Christian-American religio-nationalism.  I accept that some leaders in our nation support the nation of Israel in an attempt to move us to the End Times as outlined in the Book of Revelations.  (I consider their theology to be arrogant to the core that they can somehow force God into Armageddon).

But the way to address these dark forces of the Christian religion in the American culture is NOT to suppress our freedom of expression.  Rather, it is to embrace it.  Our Christian Founding Fathers (and don't try to water down their faiths by calling them 'deists') created a nation where all religions were welcome because the Christians of the countries of Europe were slaughtering each other.  Our Christian Founding Fathers found in the words of Jesus the concepts of peace, love, justice, and truth.  And they were willing to let the truth of Jesus go toe to toe with the truth of any other faith, including faith in humanity itself, freely and protected by the government.

The Christians who put on the collar and the gothic black clothes (Medieval Gothic Black, not modern gothic black) and went in as chaplains at Ground Zero did not go in to 'convert the unbelievers' in their time of weakness.  They did not go in to extend the power of the state to set up Christianity as the State Religion.  They went in to help any person they came in contact with to muster their own spiritual and emotional resources to overcome the Great Evil of that day.

And many of them are suffering and dying from the same illnesses that have afflicted the First Responders and workers at Ground Zero.

That cross properly symbolizes the Christian faith as one best practiced when men and women of faith are helping other, healing others, serving others, counseling others, and loving others because that is what Jesus would want them to do.  That is the message of our faith that will transcend those who would try to subvert the Christian faith for their own purposes.  That is the message of our faith that should speak to those people who brought their lawsuit to ban the cross from the museum.  That is the message of our faith that was enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of our great nation.