Everything Sad Is Going to Come Untrue

Excerpts from John Starke post:  New York’s Post-9/11 Church Boom

The smell. That's what everyone in New York City remembers from that horrible day 10 years ago.

"There was a strange smell hanging in the air, which was some strange putrid burnt chemical smell," one resident remembers. "The air felt thick and unclean to breathe. The smell lasted for weeks." Those in New York during the September 11 attacks all have vivid memories of watching the smoke-spewing towers, fleeing the chaos in Lower Manhattan, or fearing for friends and family who worked in the business district. But everyone I talked to remembers the smell.

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The following Sunday, September 16, churches overflowed with distraught visitors. At Redeemer, the ordinary attendance of 2,800 ballooned to 5,400. Keller opened his sermon with a reference to 1 Thessalonians 4:13, where Paul tells us to grieve but not like those without hope. And then he continued by citing John 11:20-53, where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

"The morning service that Sunday was so full that Tim said, 'Come back and we'll do another service right after this one,'" one Redeemer member remembers. "Just like that Redeemer grew another service."

Churches everywhere in the city saw new faces on September 16. Lots of them. One report shows that 40 percent of the evangelical churches in New York as of December 2010 started since 2000. Only an estimated 3 percent of New York's residents attend an evangelical church. Still, that figure has tripled since 1990. During one two-month period in the fall of 2009 one new evangelical church opened its doors every Sunday. The aftermath of 9/11 was a growth spurt for evangelicals in America's largest city.

"For the following year, ministry was just intense---every meeting and service had more emotion and tears in it than usual," Keller says. "A good number of people started coming to Redeemer after 9/11 and found Christ. Evangelism was fruitful."

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Even for survivors of 9/11, the aftermath appeared foreboding. Surely the city would be targeted again. New York might become a fortress, "forever patrolled by soldiers and submarines," N. R. Kleinfield wrote in The New York Times. But the expected fortress never developed. The city eventually picked up somewhere near where it left off, forever missing the two front teeth of its imposing skyline. New York's famously hardened residents resolved to stay.

So did evangelicals, often despite the urging of friends and family members. Unlike the 1960s and 1970s, they did not flee to the supposedly safer suburbs. "With God there is hope," Keller explains. "Your own fate ceases to be the reason for your courage."

During the 1980s and 1990s, networks of pastors and ministries formed. They thrived in the marketplace of ideas. So when disaster struck the city, these Christians were prepared to give a reason for their hope. It's a hope that makes sense of the reality of suffering. As Keller explained to his weeping congregation on September 16, 2001:

We don't know the reason that God allows evil and suffering to continue. But we know what the reason isn't. We know what the reason can't be. It can't be that he doesn't love us. It can't be that he doesn't care.

Why?

Because he got involved with his Son. Christianity alone tells us that God lost his Son in an "unjust attack."

Five years later, on September 11, 2006, Tim Keller would be asked to preach at St. Paul's Chapel in Lower Manhattan for an ecumenical prayer remembrance service for family members of victims of the September 11 attacks. President Bush attended with his wife, Laura. Keller ended his sermon by sharing the secret that allows Christians to grieve but not as those without hope:

In the last book of The Lord of the Rings, Sam Gamgee wakes up thinking everything is lost, and upon discovering instead that all his friends were around him, he cries out, "Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead! Is everything sad going to come untrue?" The answer is yes. And the answer of the Bible is yes. If the resurrection is true, then the answer is yes. Everything sad is going to come untrue.