Like everybody alive then, I remember what I was doing the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

At the time, I was religion editor for The Oklahoman, the metro daily in Oklahoma City. I was running a few minutes late that Tuesday because I stopped at Walmart to buy a new pair of cleats for a company softball team starting the fall season that night. As it turned out, we didn't play.

As I flashed my company ID at the security guard outside the newspaper building, he asked if I'd heard about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York. I had not. Minutes later, after I arrived in the ninth-floor newsroom, my colleagues and I watched on television as a second plane hit the twin towers. Almost immediately, ABC anchor Peter Jennings likened the attack to Pearl Harbor.

That's when I grasped the significance.

The rest of that day is a blur. Like my reporter colleagues all over the nation, I immediately put aside any personal feelings and operated on journalistic adrenaline. I wrote four bylined stories for the next day's paper: one on the religious community's response, one on Muslim fears of a backlash, one on Oklahoma City bombing victims' reactions and one on an eyewitness account by an Oklahoma professor's daughter.

Like many (most?) Americans, I tossed and turned that night.

In the days and weeks after 9/11, I recall interviewing religious leaders and ordinary congregants as they looked to God and sought to explain the seemingly unexplainable.

Twenty years later, faith remains a big part of the story. Here is some of the must-read coverage:

• Eastern Orthodox shrine to replace church destroyed on 9/11 nears completion (by Peter Smith, Associated Press)

• Generation 9/11 (by Emily Belz, World)

• Young Sikhs still struggle with post-Sept. 11 discrimination (by Anita Snow and Noreen Nasir, AP)

• Two decades after 9/11, Muslim Americans still fighting bias (by Mariam Fam, Deepti Hajela and Luis Andres Henao, AP)

• Ministering to the 9/11 first responders who never had to be told to ‘never forget’ (by Kathryn Watson, Christianity Today)

• 9/11 became a catalyst for interfaith relations and cooperation (by Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service)

• Explainer: What was, and is, al-Qaeda? (by Jon Gambrell, AP)

• How 9/11 changed American Muslims’ relationship with religious liberty (by Kelsey Dallas, Deseret News)

• She was captured by the Taliban in 2001. But God gave her a bigger story (by Rebecca Hopkins, Christianity Today)

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. Christian couple dedicate their lives to caring for Afghans: A 9-year-old girl named Lamia inspired retired Air Force Gen. John Bradley and his wife, Jan, to build schools and clinics and otherwise work to improve lives in Afghanistan.

Cheryl Mann Bacon’s in-depth profile of the Bradleys for ReligionUnplugged.com is a terrific read. (Full disclosure: I assigned the piece and worked with her on it, so I might be a little biased.)

2. ‘A private matter’: Joe Biden’s very public clash with his own church: “Becoming president has brought Biden into direct conflict with conservative Catholics on the most polarizing issue of the moment: Abortion,” notes this story by Politico Magazine senior staff writer Ruby Cramer.

This is, of course, not breaking news. But Cramer offers a thoughtful, interesting take.

3. How the Texas anti-abortion movement helped enact a near-complete ban: “Texans are almost evenly divided on abortion, but a combination of Republican control, conservative judicial appointments and cultural shifts helped the state’s anti-abortion movement find success,” reports Ruth Graham, Dallas-based national religion writer for the New York Times.

At the Dallas Morning News, faith and religion writer BeLynn Hollers (yay, the Morning News has a faith and religion writer again!) explores how the role of religion in Texas’ abortion battle became more prominent after Roe v. Wade.

CONTINUE READING: “At 20th Anniversary Of 9/11, Faith Remains A Big Part Of The Story“ by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.