'The world will never be the same!' How many times have human beings uttered this cry after a tragic event? This book analyzes how such emotive reactions impact on the way religion is understood, exploring theological responses to human tragedy and cultural shock by focusing on reactions to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and 7/7, the two World Wars and the Holocaust, the 2004 South-East Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. It discusses themes such as the theodicy question, the function of religious discourse in the face of tragedy, and the relationship between religion and politics. The book explores the tension between religion's capacity to both cause and enhance the suffering and destruction surrounding historical tragedies, but also its potential to serve as a powerful resource for responding to such disasters. Analyzing this dialectic, it engages with the work of Slavoj Žižek, Karl Barth, Theodor Adorno, Emil Fackenheim and Rowan Williams, examining the role of belief, difficulties of overcoming the influence of ideology, and the significance of trust and humility.

Drawing on a decade of research into the community that proposed the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," this book refutes the idea that current demands for Muslim moderation have primarily arisen in response to the events of 9/11, or to the violence often depicted in the media as unique to Muslims. Instead, it looks at a century of pressures on religious minorities to conform to dominant American frameworks for race, gender, and political economy. These include the encouraging of community groups to provide social services to the dispossessed in compensation for the government's lack of welfare provisions in an aggressively capitalist environment. Calls for Muslim moderation in particular are also colored by racist and orientalist stereotypes about the inherent pacifism of Sufis with respect to other groups. The first investigation of the assumptions behind moderate Islam in our country, Making Moderate Islam is also the first to look closely at the history, lives, and ambitions of the those involved in Manhattan's contested project for an Islamic community center.

A Jesuit priest recounts his experiences working among firefighters, rescue workers, and police officers at Ground Zero during the weeks following September 11, 2001 and tells of the hope, grace, and charity he found in those who suffered and in those who worked to console.

Two days after the terrible attack against the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, a union construction worker made a remarkable discovery within the ruins of World Trade Center 6. He saw a cross-like beam that stood on top of a heap of debris. He was stunned by its significance as were countless others after him. The purpose of this book is to trace the thirteen-year odyssey of this iconic cross from World Trade Center 6, to its position atop a concrete abutment within the World Trade Center during the recovery and rebuilding period, to the outside wall of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church across from Ground Zero and finally to the National 9/11 Memorial Museum where it remains today. The odyssey also includes a three-year legal battle whose appellate decision found that the Constitution of the United States does not preclude the presence of the Ground Zero cross within the National 9/11 Memorial Museum. This book is the author’s personal memoir. He is a Franciscan priest who, through many uncertain days, was the unofficial guardian of the Ground Zero cross. The concurrent themes of the book treat spirituality, grief sharing, selfless sacrifice, architecture, church history, biblical theology, and litigation. The book tells the story of many obstacles transcended on the way to the triumph of the Ground Zero cross.

Amazing stories of how God triumphed in the lives of many who were devastated by 9/11.

This is the spiritual memoir of Curt Sewell, one of the many technicians and scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project and who viewed the first atomic blast, an experience which burned away his indifference toward God.