Writing in the Dust: After September 11 - Hardcover

Williams, Rowan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802860761 ISBN 13: 9780802860767

Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co, 2002

Synopsis

Rowan Williams was close by when the terrorists struck New York and the World Trade Center fell. In this short meditation, he takes his personal experience of the horror as the starting point for some broader reflections on the feelings of powerlessness which prompted the attacks, and the appropriate Christian response to this rageā understanding where the rage comes from. There are no easy answers, but this little meditation aims to give hope that risk and reconciliation are a new way to avoid the relentless spiral downward to more and worse aggression.

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Review

With strength and humility, Anglican theologian Rowan Williams raises terrifying religious questions that linger in the wake of New York's devastation on September 11, 2001. Writing in the Dust, a brief work of brave speculation, asks how Christians should respond to the terrorist attacks, and how we should live in the climate of fear and aggression that those attacks have created. What is the proper use of our anger? What constitutes a "just war"? What do the terrorists' actions say about the risks and rewards of globalized cultures and economies? Williams does not offer clear-cut answers to these questions, and he offers no program of Christian political action in the post-9/11 world. However, he does suggest, gently and repeatedly, that "trauma can offer a breathing space; and in that space there is the possibility of recognizing that we have had an experience that is not just a nightmarish insult to us but a door into the suffering of countless other innocents." --Michael Joseph Gross

About the Author

Rowan Williams is Archbishop of Wales.

Edition details

• Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802860761
• ISBN 13: 9780802860767
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 90