Faith After The Fall

The grim litany rings out in every synagogue in the country every year, last Thursday included. A key passage in the liturgy for Yom Kippur, the somber Jewish holiday of repentance, bids believers to speculate on the ways to die. "Who by fire and who by water," they read in unison. "Who by the sword and who by wild beasts, who by famine and who by drought..." It is a hard passage. Wild beasts? There are usually some raised eyebrows.

Last week they were replaced by tears. There are indeed wild beasts afoot, and their acts packed synagogues even fuller than usual for Yom Kippur. Many churches and mosques were swamped after Sept. 11. The influx raised almost as many questions as the atrocity--about both God and American faith.

First of all, are we in revival? Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, described the Sunday following the attacks this way: "We put people in the lobby, the overflow areas, the choir risers. The lines were down the block." Clergy countrywide had similar experiences. Sixty percent of all Americans attended some kind of memorial, and Bible sales rose 27%. However, the new impulse isn't sticking with everyone. Gallup polls taken Sept. 21 and 22 suggested that weekend church and synagogue attendance rose only 6% (compared with, say, 20% after President Kennedy was shot).

Still, few would argue with the feeling of Rabbi Steven Leder of Los Angeles' huge Wilshire Boulevard Temple that since the terror "the intensity of the [religious] experience has heightened." On Sept. 22, as Attorney General John Ashcroft warned that Boston might be attacked next, 15,000 Christians knelt on the asphalt of City Hall Plaza in a display of Christian repentance. Evangelist Franklin Graham thinks the mood will hold. "There is a conflict in front of us," he says. "And that is going to keep the focus on the spiritual."

As important as church attendance, says evangelical leader Chuck Colson, is that "people are asking all the right questions." Houston pastor Ed Young elaborates: "What do I know about God, who am I, where did I come from, why am I here, where am I going?" A second tier of issues has arisen around the question of war. Muslims and others have been doing furious research on the concept of jihad. Traditional antiwar denominations like Quakers and Church of the Brethren are challenging the more common Christian concept of the just war. Some mainline Protestants, Buddhists and other religious liberals have begun peace initiatives. Many conservative Christians are speculating about the Apocalypse, and sales of the apocalyptic book series "Left Behind" are booming.