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As I have read and heard those words, I have wondered who "we" is. I was born in 1948, and my brother (two and a half years younger) and I were part of the first TV generation. Some of my earliest memories of television are of the World War II documentaries that were then ubiquitous. Needless to say, these carefully edited films did not show the full horrors of war, but nonetheless its reality was imprinted indelibly on my mind. I knew that America had won the war, yes—a victory my brother and I reenacted many times—but at a level below articulation I also knew that vast, incomprehensible forces could be unleashed as they had been in the world just a few years before I was born.

And it was not as if America had no enemies in the postwar world. Movies (on TV again) and stories introduced me to the shadowy world of communist spies intent on undermining America from within. It was fashionable for a long time, in the wake of McCarthy's excesses, to mock the fears of communist infiltration. We know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that those fears were well-grounded. Certainly they did not bespeak a sense of invulnerability.

And then there was that mushroom cloud, haunting. Like most American schoolchildren of that era I went through the rituals of "civil defense" in rehearsal for a nuclear-missile attack, including the absurd routine of kneeling under our desks. Before I was ten years old I had read the first of many post-nuclear holocaust novels that I and countless others were to read in years to come. And when I was 14 I stepped into the newly constructed fallout shelter of a friend.

Was I constantly brooding about such matters? Of course not! I worried more about pimples than about the Bomb. In my faith I had a sense of security, that ultimately all would be well. But neither did I ever suppose that the country I lived in and loved was invulnerable. How could I think that?

The imagination of disaster can be twisted into morbid delectation or, even worse, into slick entertainment, as it has in so many Hollywood productions. But it can also take us out of ourselves and return us to our everyday lives purged of complacence. It can even prepare us for times such as this, when imagination yields to dreadful reality.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Daniel Creson, Ray Bradbury, and Charlton Heston were among those who shared opinions in the Sept. 14 Chicago Tribune article on the aftershocks of last Tuesday.

For continuing coverage and perspective, see The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo full coverage.

For more Christian responses, see various articles posted on Christianity.com, Crosswalk.com, and Beliefnet.com.

The Text This Week, a resource for pastors, has collected sermons and reflections in response to the attack on America.

Christianity Today articles on the Sept. 11 attacks include:

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September (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45