Twenty-five years ago—September 11, 2001—nineteen men in a death cult killed themselves, and 2,977 others. The personal damage to the world still reverberates. Survivors refuse to speak about their experience, the way my step-father refused to speak about his time in the South Pacific during World War II, or how many Holocaust survivors block the memories of their own horror. New Yorkers in particular suffer emotionally, and even physically, as the toxic dust that blanketed the city has yielded long-term health effects.
Hundreds of thousands of others around the world have died and millions have suffered as the United States of America convulsed with grief, and vengeance. A whole “gulag archipelago” of remote torture camps popped up as our intelligence and spy apparatus rounded up suspects, many of whom lingered for over a decade in Guantanamo Bay. In Iraq, the cultural clash caught that entire nation, ruled by a narcissistic unreligious tyrant, into a death spiral pitting ISIS against the coalition of modern militaries. The Russians in Grozny, or the Israelis in Gaza, have nothing on the United States, which blasted Mosul to rubble during the “surge” to eliminate ISIS.
Evil and death permeated the air, and the whiff of it still lingers in more places than just the 9/11 memorials, which will today be filled with official people making official statements, but really, 25 years removed, it’s all political fluff. The real suffering is done in secret these days.
Let me unpack my thoughts on death cults.
When people are taught, and believe, that their path to eternal paradise lies in a proper death, they welcome the opportunity to die, especially when they are surrounded by decadent, self-indulgent, rich yet ungenerous people consumed with their own petty politics and bigotry.
The 19 terrorists who infiltrated the U.S. lived this, as they trained to take over jumbo jets, and placed themselves in position to avenge their loved ones, and propel themselves into paradise by means of killing as many of the evil infidels as possible. I don’t know if anyone talked to them about their alternatives, but if they did, it did not penetrate their delusion.
There is another death cult in the world, and I’m sure you know it, because Christianity is hinged upon the existence of one man, who was born to die, over 2,000 years ago. He was foretold for several thousand years in the Hebrew scriptures. He was expected when and where he showed up. And like the scriptures, and according to the New Testament writers, himself, predicted, he died horribly on the cross.
But the death cult of Christianity, properly understood is not about death. It’s about life from the grave. We will all die. Christians are taught that death, in Christ, is but a door to the afterlife, where we will all rise with the One who rose first. Christians don’t have to die in glory, or in a burst of violence. Christians are not taught to seek death, yet death should not be feared. Loved ones who pass one are grieved but only for our own sake, that we miss them. They are not here—they are with the Lord—according to scripture.
You don’t have to believe in God or a devil to know that death is real, and suffering is real. One group seeks to inflict both on others who do not believe as they do, as they seek vengeance in this life. Some are so consumed that they take their own lives in the process. It matters little whether they are called by a particular religion, as the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center towers were, or if they are confused and hurting, like so many who commit mass murder crimes ending with suicide.
You don’t have to believe in Jesus Christ as part of the Godhead to know that life is real, and can be full, loving, generous, and active. Those who call themselves “Christian” yet identify more with the people in the preceding paragraph are not Christian according to scripture. Labels matter very little.
In John 10:10, Jesus told his disciples, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” The thief steals souls that the Lord would have with him forever. He accuses mankind of all the selfish, self-centered, evil deeds we see, and the thief is right, because mankind is fallen from God’s image. But beneath our fleshly selves, God’s image still persists, if only we would look there and see the One who calls to us.
Let me put John 10:10 into context of what Jesus was saying. Here’s the whole passage:
7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
Twenty-five years ago, the good shepherd wept over the souls lost to the death cult, and also rejoiced welcoming souls who heard his voice. This life is filled with persecution, trouble, and pain. It can either end with deception, lies, and eternity without God, or it can end with love, peace, and the shepherd.
If you decide to join a cult, let it be the one that pulls the dead out of the grave to eternal life, not the one intent on filling graves.
May these words offer some comfort for those who are hurting today.