Book on 9/11 government conspiracy unconvincing

Surely, the 160-year-old Presbyterian Publishing Corp. must have foreseen it was rushing in where angels fear to tread when it decided to publish David Ray Griffin’s “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action” under its venerable imprint Westminster John Knox Press.

The book bluntly accuses the Bush administration of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Last month at the Religion Newswriters Assn. conference in Salt Lake City, I picked up a copy of Griffin’s book from its publisher.

The author is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Theology at Claremont School of Theology and Professor Emeritus of Religion at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont as well as a co-director of the schools’ research center, the Center for Process Studies. He’s revered as a scholar.

As such, he has authored four weighty tomes — among them “God, Power and Evil: A Process Theodicy” and “Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom and the Mind-Body Problem” — and has edited another: “The Re-enchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals.”

More recently, he has turned his attention to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, writing dozens of essays that expanded to books: “The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11,” “9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out,” “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions” — all published by Interlink or its imprint Olive Branch — and now “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11.”

The cover of the book shows a skyline of New York City that, in the style of a hand-tinted photograph, appears quaint, apart from a dense, black plume of smoke billowing above the cityscape issuing from what once was the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

At a glance, one scarcely perceives the shape of the looming, bigger-than-life, ground-up view of the Twin Towers superimposed above the charming skyline or the artist’s subtle, yet pervasive, intaglio scratches that have defaced the montage.

It’s not the trappings of pulp literature. It looks like the serious book the author, and apparently the publisher, intended.

In a statement on Presbyterian Publishing’s website, President and Publisher Davis Perkins writes, “This book is not an off-the-wall polemic but rather a considered work that deserves to have a place in the public forum of discourse about Christian faith and U.S. policy.”

Griffin, claims Perkins, has employed “established principles of intellectual argument in a book with 192 pages of carefully researched text and 49 pages of extensive scholarly notes.”

What Griffin wants us to believe is this: 9/11 was a false-flag operation — a scheme or an assault designed to appear as though it were carried out by someone else — for example, the killing of nearly 3,000 innocent U.S. citizens by their own government made to look like the work of Islamist terrorists.

Griffin compares the attacks to Nazi Germany’s Reichstag fire.

In the 76-page first part of his book, “Evidence that 9/11 Was a False-Flag Operation,” he takes the reader through his chilling theories.

The Twin Towers, he claims, were brought down by controlled demolition, not jetliners. (Unnamed — and apparently undetected — “federal officials” put the explosives in place.)

A U.S. military plane shot down Flight 93 over Shanksville, Pa.; it did not crash. A rocket punctured Ring C of the Pentagon, not a landing gear from Flight 77.

Why?

Griffin answers that question in Part 2 of the book, “A Christian Critique of 9/11 and American Imperialism,” which lends motive — if not opportunity — to his charges.

“The Bush-Cheney administration orchestrated 9/11 in order to promote this [American] empire under the pretext of the so-called war on terror,” he deduces. It’s an empire, he says, that is “evil” and the “chief embodiment of demonic power.”

Griffin never, however, actually accuses President Bush of being directly involved.

In five critical ways, he compares the U.S. to the Roman Empire of the 1st Century.

He writes: [Rome] “claimed that it was divinely authorized and even, in fact, that its emperor was divine; it developed and then deployed overwhelming military power to spread and maintain its empire; it used terror, or simply the threat of terror, to intimidate its subjects and enemies; it ruled other peoples through puppets backed up by its pervasive military presence; it collected exorbitant taxes to enrich its center and finance its imperial rule, thereby impoverishing its subjects.”

He spends the last 44 pages of the book attempting to make his case that the U.S. is now doing the same. And if it is, Griffin proposes in his preface, “One of our main tasks as theologians is to deal with current events in light of the fact that our first allegiance must be to God, who created and loves all people — indeed all forms of life. If we believe that our political and military leaders are acting on the basis of policies that are diametrically opposed to divine purposes, it is incumbent upon us to say so.”

The book, Griffin and its publisher have received scarce praise. Indeed, its publisher was called upon by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to make it clear that Griffin’s views are not the views of the church.

Julia Duin of the Washington Times has quoted John H. Adams, editor of Presbyterian Layman, as saying Griffin’s book is “as legitimate as pet rocks.”

Amidst the furor, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) asked Alan Wisdom, vice president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, to write a review. The review engages Griffin’s ideas quite tenaciously, encompassing close to 3,000 words.

Wisdom contradicts Perkins’ notion that the book is scholarly. “[It] is not a work of careful scholarship,” he writes. “When citing eyewitnesses to 9-11, he quotes only those whose words seem to support his own thesis.”

Griffin, says Wisdom, ignores “a mass of contrary evidence,” such as “eyewitnesses who saw the American Airlines plane slam into the Pentagon” and “black box recordings of the hijackers” and “the statements from al Qaeda itself.”

Much of Griffin’s evidence, Wisdom complains, “seems to be drawn from the websites of fellow conspiracy theorists” and at times, “unsubstantiated rumors and hearsay” relayed “as if they were admissible evidence.”

He does not dismiss certain questions, though, raised by Griffin’s work.

Could U.S. government officials commit mass murder? “We cannot rule out the possibility,” Wisdom concludes. “Indeed,” he says, they already have at times, “as when the Cherokee were forced to walk the Trail of Tears.”

Under the right circumstances, our government or any government or group could be capable of such a thing. That is something Griffin insists we must admit unless we are taken hostage by an assumption “that America’s political and military leaders simply would not commit such a heinous act.”

But capable is not culpable. For all of Griffin’s calculating, his theories still don’t quite add up.