Jerry Falwell apologizes, Witherspoon Society doesn’t
The Layman Online, September 21, 2001
Jerry Falwell was clobbered by people who took exception to his initial remarks about the Attack on America. So was the Witherspoon Society, a liberal activist group in the Presbyterian Church (USA), after its president commented on the attack.
Falwell apologized. The Witherspon Society didn’t.
After enduring a round of criticism that included a rebuke from the White House, Falwell issued a statement saying he regretted his Sept. 12 remarks.
“I apologize that, during a week when everyone appropriately dropped all labels and no one was seen as liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, religious or secular, I singled out for blame certain groups of Americans,” Falwell said in the statement. He said his remarks were “insensitive, uncalled for at the time and unnecessary. The only label any of us needs in such a terrible time of crisis is American.”
Jane Hanna, president of the Witherspoon Society, addressed the Attack on America with sympathy for people and regions that have spawned terrorism.
“I am as disturbed about the lack of reflection and inquiry about why such a thing could happen as I am about the disaster itself,” Hanna said in a commentary posted on the Witherspoon Society’s Web site. “Listening to reporters and government officials talk about faceless terrorists and the need to retaliate while we bomb and starve Iranians on a day-to-day basis, support the Israeli occupation of Palestinians, send arms & defoliation to Colombia, etc., etc., etc. has been difficult.”
She continued: “Do our ‘leaders’ not recognize that a more just and humane foreign policy would be a much better preventative than escalation of massive destruction of other people? The horror for US victims and their families is experienced round the clock by families in other countries where our power dominates. What about the terror of hunger, sickness, homelessness and violence our nation’s policies inflict upon the innocent here and abroad?”
The Witherspoon Society, which is one of the principal organizations advocating “progressive” change in the PCUSA, including ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexuals, acknowledged that Hanna’s remarks created a firestorm.
“Some of the comments that we have shared on the Witherspoon web site have aroused rather negative comments, which see these comments as ‘blaming America’ for the dreadful attacks on September 11,” the society said in a follow-up statement to Hanna’s remarks.
“Our thinking has not been an effort to blame, but rather to understand a terribly complex situation — while recognizing that at the same time, it is appallingly simple!” the statement continued. “To gain some understanding, we need to see how actions and attitudes of the United States may have played a role in growth of this situation.”
Included in the criticism of Hanna’s remarks were letters by three Presbyterian pastors that were published on www.presbyweb.com.
The Rev. Walter L. Taylor of Forest Park Presbyterian Church in Statesville, N.C., said Hanna’s comments “could have been written by the editorial staff of the Tehran Times.” He noted that the editorial that appeared in the morning newspaper in Islamabad, Pakistan, was “far more supportive and sympathetic than her raving reflections.”
The Rev. Joel Thornton of Buchanan County, Va., said Hanna’s remarks were “callous.” “I cannot believe that the self-proclaimed ‘progressives’ who are so loud to talk about love, care, and concern for those they see as suffering can be so callous in regards to the suffering of their own nation’s people. You would imagine that their first response would be to pray for those who suffer and those who are endangered as they seek to serve the suffering. You would think that they would actually pray for our leaders who are in the midst of dealing with this national disaster. Yet, their very first response is to criticize our leaders and attack our country in the very hour when our country and its leaders need prayer, compassion, and love the most. In short, they seek to make political hay out of others’ sufferings. This is absolutely shameful.”
The Rev. Tom Hobson, who serves two congregations in Illinois, said, “We know that it’s wrong to blame the rape victim or the domestic violence victim, but when it’s unthinkable, unprecedented mass murder on a scale approaching a small nuclear bomb, she blames the victim. Defending such horrible disregard for human life is completely inappropriate.”