Responses to terrorist attacks reported to committee
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, September 28, 2001
TEMPE, Ariz. – Members of the Worldwide Ministries Division heard from its staff about responses to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the United States. Those responses included expressions of concern from around the world as well as from the denomination’s Washington office, which is “looking at how U.S. policies contributed to this.”
The comments were made during the Sept. 27 division committee meeting.
Victor E. Makari, coordinator of the offices for Middle East and for Interfaith Relations, was in Egypt at the time of the attack.
‘Enormous sympathy’
He reported shock, grief and enormous sympathy from the people of Cario. The initial shock, he said, became disbelief at the helplessness of the United States, about “how the U.S. could not know through its vast intelligence resources what was going to happen.”
Makari said the disbelief turned into concern about the response of the United States. He mentioned there concern about the posture and rhetoric of the country’s leaders.
Makari said one of the biggest questions among Christians and Muslims alike was whether Islam was going to become the enemy. He reported the admiration of the people of Cairo for President George W. Bush when he visited the Muslim mosque in New York.
Dan Rift, associate director of global services and witness, spoke of the coordination efforts at PCUSA headquarters — the pulling together of the social justice area, the peacemaking program area, the curriculum development area and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.
Rift said staff was able to lend expertise to each other and were able to critique each other.
Leaders sign letters
Robina Winbush, director of the denomination’s Department of Ecumenical and Agency Relations, encouraged committee members to visit the Web site of the PCUSA.
She said Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, General Assembly Council Executive Director John Detterick and GA Moderator Jack B. Rogers sent a letter to the denomination.
In addition, Kirkpatrick signed a letter circulated by the National Council of Churches which was not only pastoral, but encouraged restraint by the U.S. government and encouraged people not to be too quick to stereotype or judge individuals. At last count, she said, the letter had 1,500 signatures. It was recently presented to Congress.
Winbush said that letters had been received from partner churches and ecumenical agencies around the world “expressing their love for us.”
Looking at U.S. policies
“The Washington community was basically stunned by the attack,” said Catherine Gordon from the Washington Office of the PCUSA. “We were walking in a fog,” and added that the legislative priorities of the Washington Office went “out of the window.”
“Right now one of our common concerns is the rhetoric of this being an attack on our culture and our freedom is overpowering a calm look at what is going on,” Gordon said.
“Without excusing the terrorists,” she continued, “we are looking at how U.S. policies contributed to this.”
Disaster assistance
Susan Ryan, coordinator of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, said “our immediate response was to help pastors” in the area of the attacks.
She said a retreat for pastors in the New York area is being planned at the PCUSA conference center Stony Point. The event will focus on providing support and care for pastors and their spouses. A day of workshops is also being planned.
She said there are some problems in Washington, D.C., where the Pentagon has assigned military caseworkers to the families of the victims, and there is a “sense of ‘We don’t need you,’ and we are respecting that for now.”
Missionary personnel
“From a missionary personnel perspective,” said Susan Rhema, coordinator of mission personnel “the first thing we did was send a communication by e-mail” to PCUSA missionaries. She said it became an almost global communication, and they heard from the missionaries that people were expressing “blessings, prayers and wishes for us in the U.S.”
Rhema said the Worldwide Ministries Division has asked missionaries in Pakistan to evacuate, and one couple has recently arrived in Louisville.
“One thing that bothered me that Victor said about why the USA did not know what was coming,” said Marj Carpenter, “was that those of us concerned about peace, even the PCUSA, have made a lot of noise about not spending money on FBI and CIA. We will probably never admit it, but we may have been wrong about that.”
Cynthia Walton thanked the staff for the quick response. “My concern is that there are expertise among the staff and members of the PCUSA that I don’t have that might be helpful,” she said, adding that her congregation was not going to pick up where they left on with Bible study in the spring. “We need to focus on Islam, and other things. … How do we engage in teaching our folks about Islam that is not giving erroneous information?”