{"id":2658723,"date":"2026-09-11T20:30:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T00:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-first-building-to-fall-on-9-11-was-a-church-that-and-what-came-after-were-the-result-of-a-spiritual-battle\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T20:33:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T00:33:02","slug":"the-first-building-to-fall-on-9-11-was-a-church-that-and-what-came-after-were-the-result-of-a-spiritual-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-first-building-to-fall-on-9-11-was-a-church-that-and-what-came-after-were-the-result-of-a-spiritual-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Building to Fall on 9\/11 Was a Church: That and What Came After Were the Result of a Spiritual Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">44<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-first-building-to-fall-on-9-11-was-a-church-that-and-what-came-after-were-the-result-of-a-spiritual-battle%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2658723&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The provided content appears to be a web page section containing an article reflecting on the events of September 11, 2001. It discusses the nature of the 9\/11 attacks as a spiritual conflict, highlighting the symbolism of the World Trade Center, its design influences, and its significance as a symbol of Western civilization. The article notes the destruction of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, the first building destroyed that day, and references individuals involved in the tragedy, such as Daniel Lewin and Father Mychal Judge.<\/p>\n<p>It also details the role of Reverend Lyndon Harris at st.Paul\u2019s Chapel, which served as a refuge for rescue workers after 9\/11, and his subsequent journey toward forgiveness and reconciliation. The narrative emphasizes acts of sacrificial love,exemplified by the heroes of Flight 93 who fought the terrorists,and encourages personal spiritual battles rooted in faith and love. The <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >piece concludes wiht reflections<\/a> on spiritual warfare, redemption, and the importance of responding to evil with forgiveness and Christ\u2019s message of love.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><br \/>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\"><br \/>\n<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><html><body><\/p>\n<section> \t\t\t\t<script>console.log(\"ad slot (AC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC2)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC3)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC4)\")<\/script><\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">The battle that began on Sept. 11, 2001, as part of an already in place war, was (and remains) a spiritual conflict.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">The architect of the World Trade Center, Minoru Yamasaki, designed buildings for Saudi Arabia and incorporated Islamic architecture into the arches the surrounded the bottom of the Twin Towers, a fact <a class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cair.com\/cair_in_the_news\/u-s-building-design-flavored-by-islam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">acknowledged even by CAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Yet, the World Trade Center became a symbol of Western Civilization, Americanism, and by extension, the Judeo-Christian tradition. It became a place of beauty and even grace, conquered by a tight rope walker and a toy maker who climbed up its side. People worked and even fell in love there. It was for the good The World Trade Center became that the Islamists targeted the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">The first building to be completely destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, albeit by a few seconds, was actually a church; St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was obliterated by a still collapsing South Tower of the World Trade Center. The church has since been rebuilt, and <a class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__link\" href=\"https:\/\/stnicholaswtc.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">overlooks the 9\/11 Memorial Site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">The very first person to die on 9\/11 was most likely an American-Israeli Jew, Daniel Lewin.\u00a0Lewin had served in a special IDF commando unit, knew Arabic, and likely tried to foil the hijackers plans as flight attendants spoke of a passenger stabbed in first class (where the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11 were), which could only have been Lewin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Father Mychal Judge, Chaplain of the FDNY, was the first official casualty of the Sept. 11 attacks as he died in the North Tower during the collapse of the South Tower. Though obviously Daniel Lewin, everyone else on three of the four airplanes (Flight 93 would not crash for another four minutes), and had died first, as well as people in the buildings and Pentagon, Father Judge was marked as Victim 0001, as his was the first body taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Father Judge was not the only Sept. 11 priest of note. One of them was Lyndon Harris.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Reverand Lyndon Harris was the priest in charge of St. Paul\u2019s Chapel, a small church just down the street from its parent, Trinity Church. It is also across the street from the World Trade Center.\u00a0St. Paul\u2019s Chapel is where George Washington went to pray after being inaugurated as the first President at Federal Hall on April 30, 1789, in many ways a spiritual birthplace of America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">St. Paul\u2019s had previously survived the Great New York Fire of Sept. 1776 and, when the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, not a single window pane was broken.\u00a0Federal Hall, in many ways the political birth center of our nation, saw its foundations cracked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">St. Paul\u2019s immediately, under the leadership of Lyndon Harris, became a refuge for rescue workers.\u00a0 For over nine months, meals were provided as was preaching, counseling, classical concerts and even massage therapy for first responders. Firefighters and others slept in the historic pews, including Washington\u2019s Pew.\u00a0 However, Trinity Church asked \u201cWhen will this place (St. Paul\u2019s) become a church again?\u00a0 Lyndon Harris answered, \u201cWe\u2019ve never been more of a church.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">When asked to close down the St. Paul\u2019s Chapel relief operation by Trinity Church in March 2002, often derided as \u201cTrin Co.\u201d, cops and firefighters threatened to picket Trinity on Easter Sunday 2002.\u00a0 Trinity backed down until the cleanup of what was called Ground Zero was finished in late May 2002.\u00a0 However, Lyndon Harris was pressured to resign from his role at St. Paul\u2019s Chapel in October 2002.\u00a0 The video made by Trinity Church of the St. Paul\u2019s 9\/11 mission did not feature Lyndon Harris.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Lyndon\u2019s life spiraled due to health issues, the treatment by Trinity and how he chose to respond to the wrongs.\u00a0 Quoting Nelson Mandela, he said \u201cNot to forgive is like drinking a glass of poison and waiting for your enemies to die\u201d and there was a part of him that enjoyed drinking the poison.\u00a0 Eventually, Lyndon chose the radical forgiveness of Jesus and was invited back to St. Paul\u2019s Chapel for the 20<sup><span class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__textSuperscript\">th<\/span><\/sup>  Anniversary of Sept. 11 in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Lyndon\u2019s forgiveness, represented a Christian response to wrongs in turning the other cheek.\u00a0 The passengers on Flight 93 practiced another form of Christian love; sacrificing themselves by taking up their literal arms against Islamic terrorists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Theirs was the first noted victory for freedom on Sept. 11. Flight 93 which, due to the bravery of its passengers and crew, never reached its intended target in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 They also chose the love of Jesus, by laying down their lives for people they did not know, with Todd Beamer (and surely others) praying before charging the terrorists. Beamer said over the phone to a 911 operator named Lisa (the same name as his wife, \u201cGod help me. Jesus help me. Let\u2019s roll!<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">It was in this atmosphere, at the National Prayer Service on Sept. 14, that we even heard the long dormant, Battle Hymn of the Republic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">While our national spiritual battles are important, and Scripture frequently invokes spiritual warfare in terms of government, our personal integrity before the Lord and our salvation through Christ, is the largest battle to be fought.\u00a0 In our victories, some of which have been and need to be obtained by tough means, we cannot become what we despise in the fight against evil: whether it be terrorists, other demonic forces, religious leaders (other faiths or our own) and especially our own sin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">We all have our personal Ground Zeros but, like the Cross that was formed by the destruction at the World Trade Center, we can gain the ultimate victory amongst the carnage, salvation for our sins and souls, by responding to Jesus\u2019 message of repentance and love.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\"><i><em class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__textItalic\">Larry Provost worked the search and rescue at the World Trade Center with the U.S. Army and later served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Views expressed in this article are those of the author and not any government agency.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\"><i><em class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__textItalic\">The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n<div class=\"disclaimer\">\n<p>All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter\u2019s byline and their DCNF affiliation. 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Minoru Yamasaki, creator of the World Trade Center, designed structures for Saudi Arabia featuring Islamic-inspired arches at its base-an acknowledged fact-yet the Twin Towers became symbols of Western and Judeo-Christian civilization<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2658724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Michael-Featured-Image-1359.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[56199,85532,5643,85531,42850],"class_list":["post-2658723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-9-11-2","tag-9-11-events","tag-church","tag-first-building-falling","tag-spiritual-battle"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Michael-Featured-Image-1359.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2658723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2658727,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658723\/revisions\/2658727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2658724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2658723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2658723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2658723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}