There was never any question whether the hellish events of Sept. 11 would be selected as the most important news story in the Religion Newswriters Association\u2019s annual poll.<\/p>\n\n
The question was which Sept. 11 religion story would receive the most votes.<\/p>\n\n
There were so many \u2013 from the prayers of the bombers to the prayers of those who fought them. In the end, five of the RNA poll\u2019s top 10 stories were linked to Sept. 11 in some way. The secular journalists who cover religion named Osama bin Laden as 2001\u2019s most significant religion newsmaker, with President Bush placing second.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cOsama bin Laden has demonstrated, not for the first time in history, how easily religion and religious fervor can be hijacked to serve political ends,\u201d noted one journalist.<\/p>\n\n
Was this attack merely about politics? Armies of experts said it was part of an ancient clash between civilizations and religions. Some saw evidence of a pivotal struggle within Islam, a fight requiring sermons and fatwas as well as bullets and bombs. President Bush said this was a battle between good and evil \u2013 period.<\/p>\n\n
But it\u2019s hard to discuss good and evil, and terrorists and heroes, in an age that says truth is a matter of opinion. Welcome back to America\u2019s culture wars.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not fighting to eradicate \u2018terrorism,\u2019 \u201d argued Thomas Friedman, in the New York Times. \u201cTerrorism is just a tool. World War III is a battle against religious totalitarianism, a view of the world that my faith must reign supreme and can be affirmed and held passionately only if others are negated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
In this column and others, the New York Times defined \u201creligious totalitarianism\u201d as any claim that a faith teaches absolute, exclusive truth.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe future of the world may well be decided by how we fight this war,\u201d wrote Friedman. \u201cCan Islam, Christianity and Judaism know that God speaks Arabic on Fridays, Hebrew on Saturdays and Latin on Sundays? Many Jews and Christians have already argued that the answer to that question is yes, and some have gone back to their sacred texts to reinterpret their traditions to embrace modernity and pluralism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
David Zwiebel of Agudath Israel of America fiercely disagreed, insisting that this \u201cvision of America where religious belief is welcome only if it abandons claims to exclusive truth is truly chilling \u2013 and truly intolerant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Here are the top 10 stories in the RNA poll:<\/p>\n\n
1. Americans rush to prayer vigils after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Clergy describe waves of worshippers asking, \u201cWhere was God?\u201d Worship attendance surges, but quickly returns to seasonal levels.<\/p>\n\n
2. Fearing a backlash of hate, most American Muslims experience just the opposite. Many non-Muslims organize visits to mosques and clergy condemn negative stereotypes.<\/p>\n\n
3. Bush repeatedly proclaims that America\u2019s war is not with Islam, but with those who blaspheme its teachings. But many Middle Eastern and Asian Muslims agree with bin Laden\u2019s proclamations that the U.S. is at war with their faith.<\/p>\n\n
4. Months of debate over the morality of research on stem cells taken from human embryos lead to a presidential order limiting the use of federal research dollars to existing stem cell lines.<\/p>\n\n
5. Assassinations and suicide bombings escalate in Israel, fueling animosity and mistrust in the Middle East and dimming the prospects of peace between Jews and Palestinians. Homes are bulldozed in Gaza and the West Bank.<\/p>\n\n
6. The White House proceeds with its Faith-Based Initiative despite criticism from the religious left and many conservatives. A modified version wins passage in the U.S. House, but has yet to pass the Senate.<\/p>\n\n
7. Books and courses on Islamic beliefs and culture surge in popularity as Americans seek to better understand Islamic fundamentalism and its place in the Muslim world.<\/p>\n\n
8. Pope John Paul II visits to Greece, Syria and Malta, becoming the first pope to visit a mosque, the Great Mosque in Damascus. A papal visit to the Ukraine increases old tensions, as Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox leaders claim that he is stealing their sheep.<\/p>\n\n
9. Books on prayer soar on bookstore charts, illustrated by sales of the \u201cPrayer of Jabez.\u201d The apocalyptic \u201cLeft Behind\u201d series sets publishing records, even though only 24 percent of Americans and 42 percent of \u201cborn again\u201d Christians say they have heard of the books.<\/p>\n\n
10. Christian relief workers \u2014 accused by the Taliban of trying to convert Muslims \u2014 are freed after three months of captivity in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There was never any question whether the hellish events of Sept. 11 would be selected as the most important news story in the Religion Newswriters Association\u2019s annual poll. The question was which Sept. 11 religion story would receive the most votes. There were so many \u2013 from the prayers of the bombers to the prayers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[280,720,787],"class_list":["post-946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture-wars","tag-religion-news","tag-sept-11"],"yoast_head":"\n