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236 Public religious culture post-09/11/01

importantly, perhaps, what can they tell us about the future of relations
between religion and media, and the future of the religion/media interac-
tion in the forming and shaping of religious, social, and cultural life? As
we’ve seen here, meaning-making in relation to media culture involves
both formal and received resources and resources that are emergent and in
dispute. As we will see, important events and trends such as 9/11 and the
role of religion in the election easily (and rather unproblematically) flow
into the inventory of symbolic resources out of which we make religious
and spiritual sense in the media age. And, in so doing, they point to the
extent to which the interaction between religion and media in late moder-
nity has become an increasingly profound and far-reaching one.

Religion and media in 9/11 and its aftermath
It is trite to say that the events of September 11, 2001 were unprecedented
in their scope and effect. No major city in the “Group of Eight” industrial-
ized countries had experienced such a major loss of life from an intentional
act of violence in peacetime. A strike at the heart of American commerce
2
and media with such surprise galvanized the world and the nation.
Throughout the world, at least the Western world, it is now conventional
to use the term “9/11” to describe the events, and to think of international
relations and global politics in “pre-9/11” and “post-9/11” terms. A great
deal of public and scholarly comment has followed, focusing on everything
from the security implications of the attacks to their impact on public
consciousness, locally, nationally, and internationally.
The religious subtext of the attacks has also been an important, if prob-
lematic, element of discussion and debate. The barbarism of the events
scandalized the world, and there has been an ongoing effort to reconcile
them with their claimed roots in religion. A much-feared anti-Arab or anti-
3
Islamic backlash did not materialize to any great degree, but it could be
argued that, in a more subtle way, smaller-scale reactions against Islam
and against people of Middle-Eastern and/or Muslim descent continues,
and underlies certain political debates and repercussions that continue to
gather force both in the US and elsewhere. 4
In keeping with the theme of this book, however, it is important to
understand the attacks as significant for the interaction between religion
and media that they represented and continue to represent. They simply
would not have had the same force or effect without the media. At the
same time, they brought religion to the fore in new and unprecedented
ways, ways that have forever shaped the way we see its contributions to
politics, public discourse, social change, and political struggle. Further, the
fact that religion and media interacted in these events is also significant.
The media, religion, and religion and media together were important in
the events and their aftermath in four ways. First, the media were the