Notes from the Editors

As troubling as the failure of American secular intellectuals (though not those collected here) to intervene and question the war on terrorism is, this war has also seen the capitulation of church and synagogue to the resurgence of American patriotism and nationalism. Some—for example, the editors of First Things—have gone so far as to suggest that the resurgence of religious faith in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, may be the start of a religious awakening. God and country are back. Again, however, the Bush administration wants it both ways. They want America to be "religious," but they want to make clear that this is not a "religious war." With extraordinary speed George Bush has become a scholar of Islam, assuring us that Islam is a tradition of peace. We find it curious, given Christianity's history, he does not find it necessary to assure us that Christianity is a tradition of peace.

We hope, therefore, the readers of this issue may find the nonapologetic theological essays refreshing or, at least, different. It is no secret that many secular intellectuals have no time for serious theological work. Many assume that if everyone is well enough educated and has more money than they need, no one will need God. Accordingly the modern university has largely failed to help students appreciate those determinative religious convictions that shape the lives of the majority of the world's peoples. It will be clear that the theologians and religious scholars whose essays appear in this collection have no use for apologetic strategies designed to reassure those on the right or the left that when all is said and done, religious faith is not all that dangerous.

Religious faith is dangerous. Jew, Muslim, and Christian know that there is much worth dying for. Faiths constituted by convictions worth dying for can also become faiths worth killing for. So questions of life and death are at the heart of any religious faith worth having. But it is also the case that only a religious faith for which it is worth dying will have the resources to challenge idolatries justified by the presumption that America is blessed by God in a manner unlike other nations. "God Bless America" is not a hymn any Christian can or should sing. At least it is not a hymn any Christian can or should sing unless it is understood that God's blessing incurs God's judgment.

This is but a reminder that the babble unleashed by September 11, 2001, cannot be challenged on its own terms. Rather we must find the linguistic resources in communities that have found ways prior to September 11, 2001, not to be seduced by false speech that is always our temptation. We quite literally, therefore, offer these essays as an "offering," and hope that they may help us begin to speak truthfully against the lies that can so easily constitute our lives.

Postscript

Intolerance of political dissent in the United States, at the present time, makes it necessary to say, before we exercise our right to work against the grain, that we, also, abominate the slaughter of the innocent, even as we find it unacceptably childish that Americans refuse to take any responsibility for September 11; unacceptably childish because the Americans in question are not children.