Conspiracy Theory 9-11 Book not published by our Presbyterians!

Some on you may have discovered an article in today's Clarion-Ledger reporting that: "The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) . . . Presbyterian Publishing Corporation has issued Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9-11, (Westminster John Knox) containing perhaps the most incendiary accusations leveled by a writer for a mainline Protestant book house. Author David Ray Griffin tells of concluding that 'the Bush-Cheney administration had orchestrated 9-11 in order to promote this (American) empire under the pretext of the so-called war on terror.''No other interpretation is possible,' he asserts. His conspiracy theory includes criminal involvement of the U.S. military and collusion by members of the 9-11 Commission, politicians of both parties and American journalists, who willfully ignored the plot, he says. Such a massive cover-up is possible, he explains, because people don't want to believe high officials would 'launch an attack on their own citizens.'"

The article is by the excellent AP religion writer Richard Ostling. The book is by David Ray Griffin, and the PPC website provides further details.

Well, just to be clear, that's not our Presbyterians. We are part of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). And this is just one of the reasons for that. However, I can't imagine that many of my friends and colleagues in the PC (USA) are very happy about this either.

A couple of thoughts come to mind:

1. Every Christian who is a citizen of these United States ought to have well-formed moral/political opinions. But it is not the church's business to propogate them.

2. It is perfectly okay for Christians to disagree with aspects of the public policy (domestic and foreign) of our government, but I cannot conceive of a good reason why a denominational publisher would be interested in producing this type of reality break induced, conspiracy theory promoting, seething, partisan material masquerading as serious theological reflection.