September 11 and the Churches of God

It is hard to believe that 25 years have passed since the World Trade Center was attacked by Islamic extremist vermin. Today, in 2026, an entire generation knows very little about that horrendous day. The entire world stopped and watched. Some in Gaza cheered and celebrated. Europeans were shocked. Commercial air travel evaporated within hours. Inbound international flights were diverted to Canadian airports, where citizens of small towns opened their homes, schools, and churches to care for thousands of stranded travelers.

The only known Church of God member working in the World Trade Center that morning was Adrienne Johnson of the United Church of God. She worked on the 37th floor of one of the towers and escaped safely with coworkers. The United Church of God issued a statement the next day confirming that all its members were accounted for and expressing horror at the loss of life.

Here on the West Coast, Pasadena shut down and the streets were empty. I remember the Ambassador College campus and the surrounding area being totally quiet. At noon I went to Circuit City to buy a portable radio with an earpiece so I could follow the news while I worked. Authorities were anticipating a possible attack on downtown Los Angeles, so much of the city effectively shut down.

Three of the four hijacked flights-American 11, United 175, and American 77-had been scheduled to fly to Los Angeles International Airport. That is why so many of the passengers were heading to Southern California, and why LAX and downtown high-rises were placed on high alert and partially evacuated that morning as a precaution.

Al-Qaeda had considered West Coast targets in earlier planning. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed originally proposed a larger operation striking landmarks on both coasts, including the Library Tower (now the U.S. Bank Tower) in downtown Los Angeles. Osama bin Laden scaled the plan back to the East Coast for September 11. A later "second-wave" plot to fly a plane into the same Los Angeles tower was discussed after 9/11 but was disrupted in 2002 before it could be carried out.

The various Armstrongite Churches of God, of course, wasted no time slotting the attacks into the prophecy charts they had been updating since the 1930s. By September 12 the United Church of God had issued a pastoral letter of genuine shock and grief, then immediately noted that all their members were safe. Other splinters (Living Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, etc.) followed the same script: horror, prayers, then the inevitable Leviticus 26 citation. "I will even appoint terror over you... I will break the pride of your power." 

According to Armstrongite mythology, America is modern Manasseh, one of the lost tribes, so of course God would use terrorists to humble the pride of His favorite (if currently very disobedient) nation. Gerald Flurry of the Philadelphia Church of God was particularly pleased; he had already declared in May 2001 that the world had entered its "last hour," and 9/11 arrived right on cue to prove he was paying attention. Sermons and articles for years afterward treated the attacks as both a divine warning and further evidence that only their particular remnant was delivering the real end-time message. They also liked to point out that the death toll "could have been much worse," which in Armstrongite theology is usually presented as God's mercy rather than, say, the fact that the hijackers only had four planes. 

By this time the Worldwide Church of God had already abandoned most of Herbert Armstrong's distinctive doctrines by 2001, so the prophetic heavy lifting fell to the competing successor groups, each of which remained convinced it alone understood why the towers fell. It was an orgy of melodramatic end times malarkey from the splinters, and today, in 2026, the competing COG groups will put out articles marking this as the start of America's decline that they so vitally need and wish for. They so desperately need to be proven right.