Episode #32
S7E32: 9/11 at 25: What Have We Become? - the Two Kens
Send us Fan Mail Twenty-five years ago, we woke up to a terrible tragedy. We remember the images. The first plane. The second plane. The towers collapsing. The Pentagon burning. The field in Pennsylvania. We remember the smoke, the sirens, the stunned faces—and the terrible realization that the most powerful nation on earth was suddenly, frighteningly vulnerable. But we also remember something else. For a brief moment, we seemed to remember how to be Americans together. We stood in line to give blood. We gathered in churches and synagogues and mosques. We put flags on our cars. We embraced strangers. We grieved together. And then something changed. Twenty-five years later, the question for us isn't simply what happened on September 11, 2001. We know what happened. The harder question is: What happened to us afterward? How did the trauma of that morning reshape our understanding of God? How did it change American Christianity? How did fear of terrorism become fear of Islam—and eventually, perhaps, fear of one another? We went to war. We expanded government surveillance. We embraced a doctrine of preemptive military action. We spent trillions of dollars. And somewhere along the way, the extraordinary unity we experienced after 9/11 began to fracture. So today on this special edition of the Two Kens , Ken Fong and I go back—not simply to the morning America was attacked, but to the 25 years that followed. We two former pastors are asking questions that are both political and deeply personal: Where was God? What did we become? And what, if anything, can we learn from 9/11 before fear teaches us the same lessons all over again? SHOW NOTES Support the show Become a Patron - Click on the link to learn how you can become a Patron of the show. Thank you! Ken’s Substack Page The Podcast Official Site : TheBeachedWhiteMale.com
