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So we are at war. The United States leads a loose international coalition pledged to destroy the worldwide terrorist networks, which produced the 19 young men who on September 11 randomly killed thousands of civilians and destroyed billions of dollars worth of flagship property.

America's war aim is not just retributive justice (though it certainly is that, as far as the terrorists are concerned). It is primarily to prevent such attacks in the future by eliminating their source. War is always evil, but in our nightmare scenario, where more terrorism as a follow-up is confidently promised, a war of suppression appears to most as the lesser evil. However burdensome, it is surely the best and only rational course.

We need to be clear that terrorism, whether religiously, politically, or ideologically motivated, begins as a mindset—what the Bible calls a thought of the heart. In this case, alienated persons are driven by bitterness at real or fancied wrongs, by some form of racial or class hatred, and by utopian dreams of better things after the present order has been smashed. This is an explosive mix.

Terrorists think of themselves as both victims and avenging angels. They act out their self-justifying heartsickness in a way that matches Cain killing Abel. They see themselves as clever heroes, outsmarting their inferiors by concealing their real purpose and by overthrowing things they say are contemptible. So their morale is high, and conscience does not trouble them. Gleeful triumphalism drives terrorists on; they are sure they cannot lose. This is what the anti-terrorism coalition is up against. It is only realistic to anticipate that ridding the world of terrorism will be a long job.

Terrorism is something countries like Ireland and Israel know all about, having lived with local forms of it for decades, and now America must face it too. It would be silly to deny that the prospect is daunting, indeed traumatic. Jesus spoke of a day when men's hearts would faint with fear and foreboding of what was about to come on the world (Luke 21:26). Such a day may not be far off. Here and there, it seems a measure of panic has already begun to appear.

Where may we find godly wisdom to face days like these? One source is the teaching of two 20th-century British veterans of the Cross. One was a Baptist minister, Oswald Chambers, who died in 1917 at age 43 of complications following an appendectomy. At the time, he was serving as a YMCA chaplain with the British Commonwealth forces in Egypt. The other was an Oxford don, C.S. Lewis, who was in the trenches during the first World War and who, during World War II, taught basic Christianity to the troops, to Oxford undergraduates, and to the whole English nation by a series of books, broadcasts, and addresses. He died of kidney failure in 1963 at age 64. Chambers, little known in his own lifetime, became a Christian icon only when his widow compiled and published My Utmost for His Highest in 1927; Lewis gained that status with the success of The Problem of Pain, published in 1940.

Chambers and Lewis might seem an odd couple to pair up, but they had much in common. As their admirers already know, each had a brilliant mind, a stout faith, an uncannily empathetic and perceptive imagination, and a masterful way with words. Each was a teacher by instinct and gift. Each was spiritually honest and down-to-earth to an almost frightening degree. Each was well versed in the Western theological heritage, and in Western philosophy, literature, and history. Each adored the Lord Jesus Christ unstintingly as his Savior and Master. And each had a similar approach to the nitty-gritty of living through a war.

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January 7 2002, Vol. 46, No. 1