The director of the Barna study, David Kinnaman, put the findings in context. Many Christian leaders predicted that terrorism on U.S. soil would catalyze a spiritual awakening in the country. The first few weeks were promising. But people quickly returned to their standard, faith-as-usual lives: within a month, most of their spiritual fervor was gone. Within 90 days, surprisingly few people were pursuing important questions about faith and spirituality. Now, five years removed from that fateful day, spiritually speaking, its as if nothing significant ever happened. People used faith like a giant band-aid it helped people deal with the ugliness of the event but it offered little in the way of deep healing and it was discarded after a brief period of use.
