A Christian Response to Terrorism in London
Lee Gatiss
I was just about to leave home and go into the City for a meeting on 7th July 2005. Then I had a phonecall. “Are you OK?” asked my worried mother on the other end. “Fine, thanks” I replied, “why?” She told me the news about several bombs going off in London, crippling the Underground train network, blowing up a bus, injuring hundreds and, it transpired later, killing many.
It was a sobering moment. My route into the City would have taken me right into the thick of an incident now being watched by millions of people around the world on CNN and the BBC. Had I left a little earlier I would have been caught in London’s most disruptive ever terrorist incident. The Church where I minister in Bishopsgate (the heart of the financial district of the capital) is no stranger to such incidents having been badly damaged twice in the 1990s by IRA bombs. So it is not surprising that my wife soon came crashing through the door, having run back from a Bible study when she heard the news, anxious to see if I was still home.
We sat down and prayed, thanking God for his mercy in preserving us and our children from harm in this disaster, as in all others. And there are so many other things which could have happened to either of us that day. She may have been injured running home to see me; I may have gone in early to work and been killed; and a myriad of other potential issues came flooding into our heads. At which point, my mind went to one of my favourite passages in the writings of John Calvin, a Christian pastor-theologian from the 16th Century. Calvin was writing about the peace of a Christian in the midst of troubles. He said:
"Hence appears the immeasurable felicity of the godly mind. Innumerable are the evils that beset human life; innumerable, too, the deaths that threaten it. We need not go beyond ourselves: since our body is the receptacle of a thousand diseases — in fact holds within itself and fosters the causes of diseases — a man cannot go about unburdened by many forms of his own destruction, and without drawing out a life enveloped, as it were, with death. For what else would you call it, when he neither freezes nor sweats without danger? Now, wherever you turn, all things around you not only are hardly to be trusted but almost openly menace, and seem to threaten immediate death. Embark upon a ship, you are one step away from death. Mount a horse, if one foot slips, your life is imperiled. Go through the city streets, you are subject to as many dangers as there are tiles on the roofs. If there is a weapon in your hand or a friend’s, harm awaits. All the fierce animals you see are armed for your destruction.”
Calvin does not mention terrorist bombs, although mention of wild animals armed for destruction and weapons in people’s hands certainly conjures up a familiar sense of threat. What can we do in response to such potential disaster which faces us on every corner, particularly in a big city like London? Many would like to leave for the countryside, where life is seemingly safer and more serene. Calvin therefore continues:
“But if you try to shut yourself up in a walled garden, seemingly delightful, there a serpent sometimes lies hidden. Your house, continually in danger of fire, threatens in the daytime to impoverish you, at night even to collapse upon you. Your field, since it is exposed to hail, frost, drought, and other calamities, threatens you with barrenness, and hence, famine. I pass over poisonings, ambushes, robberies, open violence, which in part besiege us at home, in part dog us abroad. Amid these tribulations must not man be most miserable, since, but half alive in life, he weakly draws his anxious and languid breath, as if he had a sword perpetually hanging over his neck?”
Perhaps this is overly dramatic? I could ask at a time like this, “Why keep living in London? It’s so dangerous to be here in the capital, especially to work in the heart of the City which is so clearly a prime target for terrorists.” I used to live in Northamptonshire, many miles away from the bustle of London and its strategic importance. We lived in a cottage on the village green, next to the old Norman Church, with a pleasant view from the kitchen window of the thatched cottages opposite. A much safer place to be, you would think.
Yet even there the myth of the idyllic country life was easy to pop. I saw a house - a brand new, expensive, state-of-the-art house - burn down and collapse, ruining the owner financially and causing him untold stress at a time when his wife was seriously ill in hospital. I saw areas deeply affected by rural decline, industrial stagnation, and unemployment with people struggling to stay afloat in situations akin to the calamities Calvin alludes to. I took the funerals of people who died in tragic circumstances, sometimes alone, often unexpected.
Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, said on 7th July, “This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.” It is not just terrorists, though, who are indiscriminate. Just ask the victims of the Asian tsunami in 2004, or the families of those killed by Hurricane Dennis in Cuba the day after the London bombings. Fate, fortune, chance, destiny, luck – whatever you wish to call it – is equally cruel and shows no partiality. No matter where we live, who we are, what we do, disaster could strike us at any moment without the slightest hint or warning.
Calvin goes on:
“You will say: these events rarely happen, or at least not all the time, nor to all men, and never all at once. I agree; but since we are warned by the examples of others that these can also happen to ourselves, and that our life ought not to be excepted any more than theirs, we cannot but be frightened and terrified as if such events were about to happen to us. What, therefore, more calamitous can you imagine than such trepidation?”
Yes, life can be exceedingly dangerous and often leaves us fragile, frail, and frightened. If we were simply the victims of chance and fortune, the recipients of whatever “fate” may befall us, whatever dramas may chance to come our way, we would indeed be miserable creatures!
But there is hope, even in the midst of such uneasiness.
“Yet, when that light of divine providence has once shone upon a godly man,” Calvin continues, “he is then relieved and set free not only from the extreme anxiety and fear that were pressing him before, but from every care. For as he justly dreads fortune, so he fearlessly dares commit himself to God. His solace, I say, is to know that his Heavenly Father so holds all things in his power, so rules by his authority and will, so governs by his wisdom, that nothing can befall except he determine it. Moreover, it comforts him to know that he has been received into God’s safekeeping and entrusted to the care of his angels, and that neither water, nor fire, nor iron can harm him, except in so far as it pleases God as governor to give them occasion." Quotations from The Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.17.10-11
We rightly fear being embroiled in events of the magnitude of the London bombs. But in the face of such terrors and the latent nightmares of every citizen of the world’s great cities, we must fearlessly commit ourselves to God and his benevolent providence. If not even a hair on our heads has gone unnoticed by him, then how much more does he watch over our journeys to work? As Psalm 46 exhorts us:
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
Whatever happens in our proud Olympic City, we must not trust to the Security Services and the Metropolitan Police. They are excellent at what they do, but they cannot prevent such atrocities from happening. We must entrust ourselves to God, who alone directs the course of this world’s affairs with ultimate justice, goodness, and wisdom. He is in charge. He knows what he is doing. He doesn’t rely on sketchy reports from Sky News or ITN – he knows what is happening, even in the midst of trouble, and is a refuge for those who put their trust in him.
Such patient trust will not always result in a happy outcome of course. Christians are not exempt from the troubles of this world. Yet they do have the sure and certain hope of another. Psalm 46 continues:
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
When this Psalm was written, the City of God was the earthly city of Jerusalem, where God symbolically dwelt in the Temple built by King Solomon. Yet now that Temple has gone, because it is no longer required. Jesus Christ, to whom the whole edifice of that Temple with its services, sacrifices, priesthood, and splendour pointed, has now come. Through his willing, once-and-for-all sacrifice of himself on the cross he has opened up the way for anyone to approach God with freedom and confidence. And he has sent his Holy Spirit to live within each person who believes and relies on him.
We, his believing, faithful people, are the “holy habitation of the Most High.” Looking to him, we shall not be moved. The nations will rage and pursue their bloody goals with the utmost efficiency of the technological age. Kingdoms will totter, and be brought to the brink of collapse and “regime change”. But all this is like a drop in a bucket compared to what God can do. God just has to speak, and the earth will dissolve: “he utters his voice, the earth melts.” So who better to rely on in a time of crisis and uncertainty?
We want an end to terrorism. We want an end to the war on terror. But how can such a thing be achieved? According to a report from the Press Association, the Beatles' guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi offered after the September 11th 2001 attacks in America to use transcendental meditation for world peace. The Indian mystic says all he needs are some "American billionaires" to build his antidote to global terrorism. He summoned 40,000 yogis in India, trained in meditation and yogic flying to create a spiritual force field. In his first public statement for seven years, he said the "peace-loving billionaires" would donate $1 billion to build housing for the group and pay their expenses while they meditate for harmony and world peace.
It is reported that he said: "Today, I'm challenging America. If I had the support of money, I have all that is needed to ... completely stop all this violence." The Yogi apparently believes that if enough people gather to meditate and 'fly' - hopping in a seated, lotus position - they will create a force field that can repel hatred and spread happiness in the world's collective consciousness. His solution, his “gospel” is money and yogic flying.
It is easy for us to laugh at such a preposterous idea. It is harder to laugh, in Britain anyway, at Tony Blair’s “grand scheme” for sorting out the world. He was setting out his vision for the world at the G8 Summit at the very moment that the London bombs went off. But that vision has been sustained for several years. Here are a few extracts from Tony Blair’s speech to the Labour Party Conference on 2nd October 2001, just weeks after the terrorists struck the World trade Centre and the Pentagon:
“There is a coming together. The power of community is asserting itself… We can't do it all. Neither can the Americans. But the power of the international community could, together, if it chose to… The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world. But if the world as a community focused on it, we could heal it… What is the answer to the current crisis? Not isolationism but the world coming together with America as a community… What is the answer to Britain's future? Not each person for themselves, but working together as a community...”
“Today,” the Prime Minister said, “humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or to provide prosperity to all. Yet science can't make that choice for us. Only the moral power of a world acting as a community can.” (I have added the italics for emphasis).
So what is Tony Blair’s “gospel”? Not money and yogic flying, but “community action”, and a judicious application of “technology.” This (apparently) is what will sort out the world’s problems. It is the same gospel as preached in the TV series Star Trek – technology is the answer to all our problems, if only we work together.
Unfortunately, such a solution can only work in a science fiction universe. When it comes to the brute facts of our present reality, we cannot be so confident that a little more education, a little more technology, and little more community spirit will be enough to overcome all our ills. For there is a poison at work within humanity itself, a ”virus” more deadly than anthrax which has eaten away at the morality and decision-making capabilities of every one of us. The Bible calls it “sin.”
Sin is rebellion against God and his governance of the world. By its very nature, it scuppers all our attempts to “work together as a community” in a perfect way, because it introduces self-interest, suspicion, fear, greed, and a host of other contaminating ingredients into our plans and actions. Not only that, but sin is actually part of our real problem – not terrorism, or poverty, or political instability, or lack of education. Technology, however advanced it may become, cannot touch sin, and no weapon of war can be “smart” enough to destroy it.
Some hailed Tony Blair’s speech as a “utopian vision of the future”. It is worth remembering that when Sir Thomas More invented the name “utopia” for his version of the perfect world, he did it with a grand sense of irony. Sir Thomas knew about sin: ‘Utopia’ is ancient Greek for ‘No Place’! A world where there is (to quote the Gospel according to Blair) “hope amongst all nations of a new beginning where we seek to resolve differences in a calm and ordered way” simply cannot exist while sin is still rampant. It is a ‘No Place’.
In contrast to these worldly solutions, Psalm 46 concludes:
Come, behold the works of the LORD, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!" The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
God is the only one who can end all wars and bring peace again to his fractured world. And he will. So is there no hope at all? “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:3). Yes, there is hope for a violent, confused, and messed-up world. The politicians claim that “It was the events of 11 September that marked a turning point in history, where we confront the dangers of the future and assess the choices facing humankind.” But they have got the date wrong.
The turning point for the world happened 2000 years ago, when the Son of God died on a cross for our sins, and rose again as the first-fruits of the new creation. It was then that the world acted together as a community – not to make poverty history or put an end to climate change, but to crucify the Lord of Glory himself! It was then that the world changed forever, not on September 11th 2001 or on 7th July 2005. The cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ dealt once and for all with our greatest problem: sin, our rejection of God, and the judgment it inevitably incurs from a just God. Because as Ralph Waldo Emerson once remarked, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
The choice facing humankind in the wake of those truly earth-shattering events is huge: will our rebellion against God continue, or will we bow in submission to King Jesus and so enter his perfect new world? “Be still and know that I am God” or continue with your noisy rejection of him? The day is coming when Jesus will return to usher in that new creation. He will be exalted among the nations. Every eye shall see him, even those that pierced him (Revelation 1:7). Will we welcome him as our king, as the one we recognise as our Master and Lord, whom we trusted and served even in the midst of this vale of tears? Or will we weep and wail, realising for the first time the seriousness of having ignored him, as judgement day - the day we always dreaded would come – finally arrives?
What we choose to do now, will affect how we feel when that day arrives. And Jesus warns us that whenever something like this happens, whenever people die in tragic circumstances, we are not to start pointing the finger, but to think of our own relationship to God. When he was confronted with a similar incident (not identical, but similar) in Luke 13 he was asked whether the people who suffered at the hands of evil men and those who suffered in other disasters were worse sinners than everyone else. He answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:2-5).
This is not a threat – it is a warning. We must turn to God before it is too late for us to do so. One day it will be too late for all of us, because the horrifying statistic is that 10 out of every 10 people die.
At St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate we have an official “terrorism contingency procedure” with which all staff are familiar. We plan and prepare ourselves for such an eventuality, hoping it never happens but being ready all the same. We have had some false alarms in the past year, but this has only made us more vigilant, appreciating that one day it might be for real. Sadly, on 7th July, the alarms were not false.
Yet in another sense, they were false alarms. Because every incident of this nature is meant to make us alert, not to the possibility of further terrorist attacks, but to the possibility of our own imminent death and judgment by God. The alarm bells have been ringing on that score, for quite some time. The bombs in London killed fewer than we all feared, but gave all of us a scare. Once that fear has subsided and melted away with the passing of time - the first trip on the tube again, the first bus journey the week after - we are meant to remain vigilant; vigilant not for suspect packages or scapegoats but for the real world crisis which is approaching.
It will happen in our lifetime. Either we will see Jesus returning through the clouds as he promised he would, or we ourselves will go “to meet our maker.” The question we are faced with now is: are we prepared? Have we planned for that day? Do you have a “judgment day contingency procedure” in place that will stand the final test?
We cannot plead ignorance. We cannot plead lack of warning. We cannot plead that we have been “fairly good” people, or “OK, on balance.” We won’t get away with just being slightly less grubby than others on the day when the pure and holy God calls us all to account. If we try to plead at all, it will get us nowhere. The only way into God’s kingdom is if Jesus has put you on the guest list. Did you reply to the invitation he sent?
