Remembering 9/11
September 11, 2026
Kate Penney Howard

Twenty-five years ago today, we learned what men will do when they decide God authorized them to rule everybody else. We should still know it. And we should be brave enough to bring that lesson home, to our own country, our own leaders, our own religion.
Today we remember the thousands who were murdered. We remember the people who ran toward the smoke. We remember the families who’ve loved an empty chair for a quarter century. When we truly respect somebody’s grief, we don’t turn their dead into permission to persecute the living.
Last night, at the RNC, the programming was full of Christian nationalism. You can see some of the quotes in the images below. (See Kate Penney Howard’s Facebook post 9/11/2026)
Let’s talk honestly about it, and about the country it’s offering us.
Christian nationalism makes a claim about power. It says America belongs especially to Christians. It says one interpretation of Christianity should govern everybody. It says people outside that faith live here on terms Christians get to set.
Think about who pays for that. A Muslim child whose family’s belonging gets questioned all over again every few years. A Jewish neighbor expected to treat Christian observance as the government’s default setting. An atheist whose citizenship gets treated as morally suspect. Christians whose faith doesn’t count because they won’t bless a politician’s agenda.
So who decides which Christianity counts? And what happens to the rest of us when we say no?
I won’t hand those decisions to the state. I won’t call religious coercion faithfulness. I won’t accept the fearmongering that tells me my neighbor’s freedom threatens mine. My faith hands me obligations toward my neighbors. It hands me no right to rule them.
Watch closely when politicians turn fear into a demand for obedience. Watch when they describe whole communities as threats. Watch when they hint that God signed off on their authority. Religious certainty can make accountability look unnecessary, that’s exactly when accountability matters most.
Twenty-five years is long enough to ask what we’ve learned about grief, fear, and the uses of power. It’s long enough to admit that a wounded country can be led toward compassion or trained to keep hunting for enemies. We’re responsible for which direction we pick now.
So challenge the claim that America belongs to one religion. Defend your neighbor’s freedom with the same urgency you’d defend your own. Ask your clergy what they’re teaching about power. Ask your elected officials whether they’ll protect the equal citizenship of people who don’t share their beliefs. Then insist on an answer.
We can love this country and honor September 11 with remembrance, and with a promise to the people who’ll love it after we’re gone. They deserve a country where nobody has to pass a religious test to be loved, accepted, or elected. Christian nationalism can’t give them that country. We have to build it. You and me, starting again today.
Never forget why we’re building it. Let’s hand them a better America by 2051.