the New Pantagruel

Let’s Roll Over

by Dan Knauss and Caleb Stegall

This article was to appear in re:generation quarterly’s Fall 2003 issue–an issue that was never published due to that magazine’s sudden demise after more than ten years in print. In many ways, this article and online publication are indebted to RQ. Around 2002, the New Pantagruel’s founding editors first encountered each other in RQ’s online discussion forum. There, in the crucible of many arguments, the basic ideas and aesthetics behind tNP developed, and the collaboration that produced this article took root. With the cooperation and support of other people–many of whom had been connected with RQ in some way–the New Pantagruel came into existence in August 2003 and put out its first issue in January 2004. :: Eds.

n the night of September 10, 2001, Doug MacMillan’s best friend, Todd Beamer, had just returned from a European vacation with Lisa, his wife of seven years, and their children. MacMillan stopped by the Beamer house that evening to welcome the travelers home. After a friendly visit, and realizing that Todd was flying out early the next morning on a business trip to San Francisco, MacMillan left before it got too late. Backing down the Beamer drive, he was surprised to see Todd trotting down to his car. “He stopped me,” MacMillan recounts, “and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, ‘I’ll talk to you later buddy.’”

Of course, MacMillan never saw his friend again.

The rest of Todd Beamer’s story—how he and his fellow passengers on Flight 93 rushed the cockpit over the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania and brought the plane down—is, by now, an American legend. It remains a remarkable account: ordinary folks going about the business of America, making things work for themselves and their families, rising up to spontaneously oppose a sudden evil in their midst and perhaps saving thousands of lives; Todd Beamer reciting the Lord’s Prayer with a phone operator and then entering into battle with the now famous words, “Okay, let’s roll.”

The mix of religion, can-do optimism, self-sacrifice, and incredible success met the immediate need of a nation still reeling from shock, needing to relate somehow to a sense of decent resistance which the government, at that early stage, was unable to provide. “Let’s Roll!” was taken up as a rallying cry by the press. Lisa Beamer, a poised and articulate widow, quickly became a media darling. Appearances multiplied, from Larry King to Oprah to the network morning shows back to Larry King to Christian radio to the network news magazines and back to Larry King again. Though the exact number of such appearances is unclear, some published accounts put the figure near 200. President Bush seized on “Let’s Roll!” as a fitting phrase to sum up the sentiments he hoped to instill in the American people with his State of the Union address in January of 2002, and Lisa Beamer was his special guest, taking it all in from her spot next to the first lady.

In the long-term, Todd Beamer and Flight 93 have remained potent symbols through which Americans relate to and understand the watershed events of September 11, 2001. But more than a uniquely American story, those closest to Todd have actively sought to shape his story as a uniquely Christian one. Over and over in the aftermath of September 11, both Lisa Beamer and Doug MacMillan used the public attention given to Todd Beamer’s story to articulate a specifically Evangelical confession: that Todd was able to do what he did because, as MacMillan put it, “whatever he was involved in he gave it 100% because … he knew what he was called to do, he knew he was called to honor, first and foremost his faith in Christ, and he did that.” According to MacMillan, for Todd, honoring his faith in Christ meant honoring first his family, and then those around him. Imbuing Beamer and MacMillan’s efforts was the sense that their opportunity to witness on the public stage was the “reason” for Todd’s presence on Flight 93 to begin with.

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