Overlooked in the tons of rubble being cleared away from the September 11 wreckage of the World Trade Center is the persisting relevance of religion and spirituality to the emergence of a humane future for the peoples of the world. Many thoughtful persons took away from the horror of the attacks the hyper-modernist message that religion is a dark force in history that needs to be superseded to the extent possible, and certainly excluded by all means from the public space of political action. Such a reaction, although dangerous and misconceived, was understandable given the nature of the attacks. After all, the deadly mission could only be carried out because of the availability of suicidal warriors unconditionally dedicated to the Islamic faith.

This realization should not be regarded as an indictment of Islam, much less of religion in general. It needs to be acknowledged that all world religions at various points of their development have exhibited fanaticism and intolerance. Indeed, each of the world religions is double- coded in the sense of being vehicles for the transmission of contradictory ideas about the essence of the religious worldview. The monotheistic religions that have played such prominent historical roles in the unfolding of the West are powerfully double coded in their respective sacred texts. It is thus validly possible for a devout adherent to believe that the religious perspective is either imparting an exclusive truth that demands unconditional faith or is teaching an inclusive truth that is diversely conveyed to the faithful in the distinct idioms of separate religious traditions. Exclusivity when carried to extremes leads to religious warfare, while inclusivity if fully realized would achieve a spiritually unified, although culturally and religious diverse, community embracing the entire created order: persons, animals, plants, the cosmos. What makes this reality of religion so profoundly disturbing is that both lines of interpretation seem powerfully grounded in the experience, scriptural writing, and learned commentary of these religious traditions. Such double coding can be comprehended as both the ultimate test of religious faith and the deepest mystery of religion itself, posing the haunting question as to why the religious perspective should be so inherently mired in controversy, contradiction, and confusion. Does it relate to the reality of human freedom or does it tell us more about “doubling” as the essence of the human condition, a generalization of the biblical story of Cain and Abel?

From the point of view of those that seek spiritual unity on the basis of religious diversity, the truth and salvation claims of exclusivity lead to bloodshed and chaos. For the exclusivist, those who are not blessed by choosing this narrow path dwell in the land of the fallen. They are to be pitied, at best, eliminated, at worst. These patterns of beliefs can be manipulated by demonic leaders, and under certain circumstances give rise to genocidal violence. The most recent manifestation of this dark potentiality is certainly Al Qaeda, September 11, and the vision of Islamic purification articulated by Osama Bin Laden.

The September 11 attacks as an expression of this sort of religious politics gives rise to a need for resistance on behalf of the security and serenity of the peoples of the planet. But a response should itself take utmost care not to fall into the trap of extremist imitation, emulating the exclusivity of the assailant. There are reasons for concern at this point, especially given the apocalyptic language used by President Bush to describe the war against global terror and the grandiose goals being pursued by the American-led coalition, often without due regard for decency or the innocence of civilian life. For Israeli tanks and helicopters to attack Palestinian civilian society and even refugee camps as part of the anti-terrorist war is to understand that the defense against extremism, if not itself limited by moral and legal boundaries, can have the effect of expanding the circle of inhumane violence and criminality. For much of the world caught in between what is being witnessed a frightening collision of fundamentalisms- an encounter between religious fundamentalism on the one side and secular fundamentalism on the other. In its latter form exclusivity reveals its resilience, deforming even the reliance on reason and liberal democracy that are the hallmarks of the highest forms of modernity.

To avoid singling Islam out for blame, it is also important to step back from the intensity of the moment to realize that the West has much extremism in its own religious past. Patterns of extremism and intolerance have erupted in all civilizational settings at various points in history with disastrous results for the more benign hopes and aspirations of humanity. We in the West need only recall the Spanish Inquisition or the widespread burning of women as witches, periodic bouts of virulent anti- Semitism, the religious wars of Europe to realize that the Judeo-Christian tradition is no stranger to religious extremism, and its lethal enactment.

The West is far from innocent, especially the United States as a political actor, although it is important to appreciate that the victims of the attacks were innocent. The Islamic resentment against the US arises for many reasons: the humiliation of the Palestinians, the seeming role in sustaining Israeli dominance, the penetration of the Islamic world, the exploitation of Arab oil wealth, the support given to cruel and corrupt regimes, the maintenance of sanctions against Iraq in the face of evidence of widespread human suffering.

The trauma of the attacks left Americans shaken, scared and angry, and generally disabled from self-scrutiny. Wrath was turned against the terrorist perpetrators, but indirectly, as well, against the sort of religious indoctrination that produced such destructive behavior. What is forgotten by many is that religion, if inclusively practiced, is also integral to our sense of the meaning of life, to our willingness to struggle for a better world, and to our affirmation of human solidarity resting on invisible spiritual bonds. More than any other widely endorsed worldview it is religion that continues to give humanity this message of unity and authentic potentiality. The only competing creeds are humanism that is too weak and shallow, engaging the mind but not the heart and soul, and nationalism that arouses the passions but in support of a fragmented totality leading to a realist mentality of us against them, generating a vicious circle of conflict and exploitation of the weak by the strong.

It is the essential teaching of modernity that religion can be dispensed with or marginalized as the basis of human identity, that progress is associated with science and technology, and that secularism provides the only sound basis for good governance. Such an outlook is mired in materialism, culminates in nuclear weaponry, human cloning, robot armies, leading to an eventual catastrophe for the entire species. Only a spiritualized politics can build the sort of global polity that can sustain life and fulfill human potentiality, but this will not happen without the strong participation of the established world religions from East and West providing the normative frame for a unifying process that is built on a celebration of diversity.

What we identify as “religion” within this inclusive frame of humanity is also subject of an authentic variety of interpretations. There is, to begin with, the crucial institutional role of churches, mosques, temples, and houses of worship in leading their adherents to an engagement with the lifeworld that is grounded both in taking human suffering seriously and in the hope for the future that faith in the unseen provides. Hans Kung has articulated such a global and inter-cultural grounding for religion by invoking a shared ethos: treat every human being humanely; do unto others what you what have them do unto you, and the corollary, do not do unto others what you would not have them do to you. Encouraging such a sense of institutional and ecclesiastical responsibility would not only help organized religion recover a sense of historic relevance, but it would also work against the sort of chauvinistic backlash that has been generated by September 11 and by the rightist critics of globalization. This sort of fundamentalist nationalism is the secular equivalent to religious exclusivism, and poses similar challenges to our sense of human solidarity and human destiny.

As significant, is building bonds between religion and spirituality, which includes building bridges between religious communities and secular humanists of various outlooks throughout the world. Part of the complex coding of religious truth within the world traditions is the potentialities of mystical renderings, whether as epitomized by Christian mystics, Sufi masters, teachers of the Kabbalah, Zen Buddhist teachers, Hindu gurus, and many other mentoring spiritual leaders and orientations. Such spirituality imposes demands on adherents that cannot be generally met, but these perspectives penetrate deeply into cultural spaces, influencing poetry and art, and softening the hard edges of religious and ethical doctrine. Such spiritual perspectives also provide a corrective to the kind of empirical rationalism that became so dominant in the West during the unfolding of the Enlightenment. The acceptance of a global, unified ethos that transcends, but does not question, the specificities of belief and practice associated with particular spiritual traditions, reinforces the sense of mystery and awe that is the core of the religious experience, and can otherwise be virtually lost either by formal religion that dwells on liturgical orthodoxy or that modernizes to the point of eliminating non-rational elements of faith.

It should be clear that the spiritual as used in the preceding paragraph was not affected in any way by the events of September 11. The religion that seemed associated with the attacks was an extreme variant of organized Islam, the Wahabbi line of cultic belief, that took hold on the Arabian peninsula several centuries ago, making periodic revivals, and always challenging established authority by its fanatical devotion to its rigid version of Islam. The spiritual traditions need to be challenged from the other direction, from the viewpoint of a duty of engagement. Their commitment often engenders withdrawal from the traumas and torments of the world, and provides sensitive individuals with the sort of distance from worldly concerns that leads to the most impressive spiritual attainments. Such possibilities should be safeguarded as a precious treasure of the religious way of life, but in this period of global emergency, the creative engagement of spiritually minded individuals can be inspirational for humanity in general, and cannot be done without.

September 11 demonstrates that extremist religion can be a menace to our hopes and dreams, as well as to our minimal security. But a deeper reading of September 11 suggests the failure of inclusive religion to engage itself far more vigorously in overcoming injustice and working toward a political ethos of nonviolence. Instead of September 11 sounding the death knell of the global role of religion, it might yet provide the impetus for a religious and spiritual awakening that is so urgently needed to avoid the pitfalls of both an oppressive economic globalization and a scientific momentum that moves our human narrative ever closer to a time of ultimate reckoning.