General Assembly Council responds to terrorist attacks
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, September 30, 2001
TEMPE, Ariz. — The General Assembly Council has approved sending a pastoral letter to each ordained minister and session in response to the terrorists’ attacks on America on Sept. 11.
Adelia (Dedie) Kelso, vice chair of the council and a member of the letter’s writing team, said the executive committee wanted to “share our feelings with the church.”
“This comes from our heart,” she said, asking the council not only to accept the letter written by the team that included Neal Presa and Barbara Renton, but to “own it.”
The pastoral letter begins, “Thank you … Thank you for prayers, worship services, and remembrances; for acts of compassion, giving blood, helping in the search and rescue; for generous donations and countless other deeds of caring in response to the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Thank you for embodying the living Christ.”
Kelso said the writing team members “strongly feel that the first order of Presbyterian Christians is gratitude.” She added that the team felt the letter should only be one page in length, “so it would be read or prayed from the pulpit, or placed in the bulletin as an insert.”
The proposed letter was amended by adding a sixth prayer petition, “Pray for those we understand to be our enemies (Matt. 5:44).”
“This is a commandment of Christ,” said Paul Masquelier Jr., who proposed the amendment. “To pray for these things and not to pray for our enemies is not true to the gospel.”
The letter thanked God that “our grief has untied us rather than divided us; … prayer and support from our partner churches … emergency responders, construction workers and caregivers continue to give of their time and efforts; the President, his administration, and Congress are seeking international collaboration in fashioning a measured response; and alternative strategies to the use of lethal force are being used.”
The letter also requests that Presbyterians pray for the men and women of the armed forces and their families; the leaders of the nation and the world; the people living in the shadow of grief and in fear of violence; and for one another, not forgetting the children.
The letter ends, “In our deeds of service, in our words of comfort, in our silent and public prayers, we attest to the reality that “in life and in death, we belong to God. “God of grace and God of glory … grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour.”