The protestant crackup continues apace.

Bad theology, no philosophy, and infantile leftism sends you straight to Hell and gets your book remaindered in sixty days.

The Wichita Eagle: Presbyterian publisher's book blames U.S. government for Sept. 11
BY RICHARD N. OSTLING
Associated Press

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has tumbled into a new dispute over the Sept. 11 attacks of five years ago.

I think he means stumbled, not tumbled. But then again, do words really matter?

Its Presbyterian Publishing Corporation has issued "Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11" (Westminster John Knox), containing perhaps the most incendiary accusations leveled by a writer for a mainline Protestant publisher.

Author David Ray Griffin tells of concluding that "the Bush-Cheney administration had orchestrated 9/11 in order to promote this (American) empire under the pretext of the so-called war on terror."

"No other interpretation is possible," he asserts.

His conspiracy theory includes criminal involvement of the U.S. military and collusion by members of the 9/11 Commission, politicians of both parties and American journalists, who willfully ignored the plot, he says.

Such a massive cover-up is possible, he explains, because people don't want to believe high officials would "launch an attack on their own citizens," which would be "treason of the worst sort."

Indeed. And if unfounded, it's an accusation of the worst sort.

"If unfounded", Citizen Ostling? Is that what they call journalism in the East?

Griffin is unable to provide hard evidence and connects few dots. Rather, he discusses the metallurgy of the World Trade Center towers and various murky details and odd occurrences regarding the fateful day. He spins forth the speculations after deeming the accepted version of events implausible.

Such 9/11 conspiracy theories have heretofore been spread abroad by Internet sites and Muslim extremists (some of those theories have blamed Jews, something Griffin goes out of his way to avoid).

Now a venerable, respectable religious publisher has baptized such thinking as an acceptable part of public discourse.

Griffin also asserts claims about "abundant evidence" of Bush administration orchestration of 9/11 in a separate anthology from Westminster and did so also in two previous books for a small secular publisher. He has also spoken to campus and church groups.

He's a member of "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" along with Kevin Barrett, a Muslim instructor at the University of Wisconsin who's under fire for making similar accusations.

This is a notable event for mainline Protestantism, where leaders' attacks on U.S. foreign policy have escalated. Last spring, the social issues spokesman for President Bush's own United Methodist Church even called for his impeachment.

Griffin has solid mainline credentials. He's an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and recently retired after a long teaching career at the United Methodists' Claremont (Calif.) School of Theology.