As we approach the fifth anniversary of 9/11, airline stocks plummet because of a plot to bring down U.K.-to-U.S. planes by using liquid bombs. The trauma of 9/11 cannot be underestimated and I do not mean to minimize it. It deserves our attention and it was supposed to.

What I am concerned about as a religious leader centers on a character issue. Members of my family have been in every American war going back to the American Revolution. As to Vietnam, there are plenty of friends and classmates who served and even died there. I cannot make little of the sacrifices of anyone who risked lives for this country, let alone were killed or maimed doing it.

My question concerns our response of panic, our intentional ignorance, that prevails in our country. Christians, no matter how modern, tend to fall back into very old patterns, and one of those patterns is the crusade, what Muslims call jihad. To carry out a holy war, it is necessary to demonize the enemy, rouse despair and fear, and kill as many men, women and children on the other side as possible.

On the other hand, there is an old tradition of Christian peacemaking. The Franciscan friars were given charge by the Muslims of the holy places in Jerusalem. They were forbidden by Francis of Assisi to carry weapons, so the Muslims knew they were no military threat. Empires have come and gone, but the unarmed friars are still in the Middle East.

In Christian terms, fortitude, a source of peacemaking, is the aristocrat of virtues. A Buddhist leader like the Dalai Lama can speak of pursuing our search for compassion even if we had to sit in hell for eons. In this era of technology and global economy, our country cannot be defended from any and all attacks, especially if the attacker is willing to die in the attempt. We will eventually suffer a terrible attack.

What we can do is what generations in other places have done before us. The civilian populations in Europe and Asia survived devastating continual bombardment that did not demoralize them but on all sides stiffened resistance. Millions of people nearly died in concentration camps or had family members killed in them. If they survived in such far worse situations, we can, too.

In some ways, we have it much better because the numbers actually killed by terrorists are both tragic and very low. If we have a war on terrorism because of 9/11, the 1 million-plus Americans who die every year from heart disease and cancer also deserve a war on what killed them. If we have a war on terrorism, then the 40,000 and more who die in automobile accidents deserve a war on the craziness that makes roads far more dangerous than any plane, with or without a terrorist threat.

I know personally a number of British, French, Israelis, Catalans, Germans, Chinese, Koreans and Japanese who as civilians faced death every ordinary day during their wars. These people were just like us and came through the terror.

We can, too.

The Rev. Halbert Weidner is pastor of Holy Trinity Church and St. Sophia. He's a member of the Oratorian religious order.