wfn.org | Churches' U.S. Response Post-Sept. 11 Wide-Ranging, Creative

[Carol Fouke <carolf@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227; news@ncccusa.org; www.ncccusa.org
NCC10/10/01 FEATURE STORY

CHURCHES' U.S. RESPONSE POST-SEPT. 11 WIDE-RANGING, CREATIVE
Sidebar: Christians from Middle East Grieved at Sept. 11 Attacks, Stereotyping

	NEW YORK CITY - U.S. churches are responding domestically to the September
11 attacks in wide-ranging and creative ways, revealed discussion among
church leaders at the National Council of Churches Executive Board's October
1-2 meeting here.

	The board, which meets quarterly, is made up of representatives from the
NCC's 36 Protestant and Orthodox member communions, with 50 million
adherents in 140,000 congregations.  Board members set aside 90 minutes of
their planned agenda to "debrief" together on the attacks and their
aftermath.

They also heard from two pastoral counselors, who urged them not to
underestimate their own stress and trauma and to build a support system for
themselves to ensure the effectiveness of their ministries on behalf of
others.

"We are all victims of what took place on September 11.  We have different
ways of responding to those tragedies.  We as leaders are called to heal
ourselves and work in the healing of our communities," said the Rev. Dr.
Robert W. Edgar, NCC General Secretary, a United Methodist.

"I was on the West Coast when this was happening, but it happened to me,"
agreed Elenie Huszagh of Nehalem, Ore., an attorney and lay member of the
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America who is NCC President-Elect for
2002-2003.  "We all have to support each other," said Ms. Huszagh, who
chaired the October 1-2 meeting.

Representatives of 10 communions, along with staff of the NCC and its global
humanitarian ministry, Church World Service, shared reflections and reports
during the discussion.  While NCC/CWS and member communions also are
supporting a major humanitarian relief effort serving refugees fleeing
Afghanistan, their discussion during the NCC Executive Board meeting focused
on their domestic response.  Here are some highlights:

	PASTORAL AND SPIRITUAL CARE:  Near "Ground Zero," local churches including
St. Paul's Episcopal Church and St. Barbara's Greek Orthodox Church are
serving as centers of counseling, volunteer coordination and prayer,
Executive Board members reported.  Seamen's Church Institute, an Episcopal
Church ministry, is supporting recovery workers with meals and other
practical assistance.

	Top officials of the New York City-based Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of
America (www.goarch.org) and Syosset, N.Y.-based Orthodox Church in America
(www.oca.org) have been attending funerals and memorial services, especially
for members of their parishes.  "Every one of our parishes lost people,"
reported the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese's ecumenical officer, Bishop
Dimitrios Couchell.  St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, in the World Trade
Center's shadow, was destroyed when the adjacent buildings collapsed.

>From the start, Church World Service (www.churchworldservice.org) emergency
response consultants have been helping organize interfaith response in New
York; Washington, D.C.; Somerset County, Pa.; Los Angeles, and Boston.

	Recognizing that the repercussions of September 11 reach into every U.S.
community, the NCC/CWS and member denominations are disseminating - and
stocking their Web sites with -- resources to help pastors with counseling,
dialogue, spiritual guidance and religious education, especially with
children and youths.

To this end, CWS is sponsoring four live interactive conversations over
www.FaithandValues.com.  The United Church of Christ Web site (www.ucc.org)
has opened an ongoing on-line dialogue.

Dr. Margaret Kornfeld (www.margaretsgarden.com), one of the two pastoral
counselors who joined the NCC Executive Board discussion, urged religious
leaders to "find out what's already working in your communions" and use that
infrastructure to help meet members' needs.

She told of St. Augustine By-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Santa Monica,
Calif., that already had a well-established "TeleCare" Team Ministry where
every member is called every six months to see how they are doing and to
offer prayer.  The TeleCare Team is just starting its fall round of calls
and expects to hear concerns related to the September 11 attacks and
subsequent U.S. military action.

Emphasizing the importance of religious leaders' "leadership in the work of
spirituality," Dr. Kornfeld said, "Terrorism is a psychological war.  The
antidote to fear is love.  It's the spiritual response to a psychological
trauma.  Help people do acts of love that cast out fear."

Dr. Kornfeld is President of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors
(www.aapc.org).

	THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION: Several communion representatives described ways
they are seeking to help people make sense theologically of what happened on
September 11.  The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (www.pcusa.org) is engaging
in reflection "on radical evil, repentance and just war," reported the Rev.
Robina Winbush, PCUSA Director for Ecumenical and Agency Relations.

The American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. (www.abc-usa.org) is seeking to
build on the current "outburst of spirituality and worship" to cultivate "a
deeper, more mature spirituality," the denomination's interim general
secretary, Robert H. Roberts, said.

Pastoral counselor Dr. Mary C. Ragan urged churches to also "help people
understand the process of demonization, why the person who looks and sounds
different becomes 'dangerous' to us ? In a time of patriotic fervor, we must
be especially careful about the violence that is projected out."

She added, "This is a time creative energies can be mobilized like no other.
Don't miss this.  Don't go on with business as usual."  Dr. Ragan is
Director of the Lower Mid-Manhattan area Psychotherapy and Spirituality
Institute (www.mindspirit.org).

	STATEMENTS:  Perspectives on September 11 and reflections on how to respond
have been offered by many denominations.  U.S. Orthodox church leaders are
at work on a statement about the nature of the crisis and the challenges all
face.  The American Baptist Churches are working "to be sure the response
seeks both justice and mercy in this moment, making sure we get beyond
vengeance," Roberts reported.

The NCC helped circulate the interfaith sign-on statement "Deny Them Their
Victory" and will soon mail it to congregations along with the statement
"Diversity and Community," issued in November by the U.S. Conference of
Religions for Peace.

	INTERFAITH UNDERSTANDING:  Decades of interfaith relations groundwork
undergirded joint meetings and statements condemning the September 11
attacks -- and warning against blaming the wrong people.  The Episcopal
Church (www.ecusa.anglican.org) quickly distributed a factsheet on Islam.
The NCC invited Muslim leaders to a meeting and the United Methodist Church
Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns (www.umc.org) set
aside most of the agenda for its meeting in Los Angeles the week of October
8 for visits with the Islamic community.

	PARTICIPATION IN REBUILDING:  Asked by its members across the United States
how to help following the September 11 attacks, the Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ) (www.disciples.org) is encouraging people to help
rebuild their own communities.

"It's a practical way to respond," said the Rev. Robert K. Welsh, President
of the denomination's Council on Christian Unity.  The Disciples were
instrumental in founding Habitat for Humanity, which celebrated its 25th
anniversary in September in Indianapolis, the Disciples' headquarters city,
he said.

-end-

CHRISTIANS FROM MIDDLE EAST GRIEVED AT ATTACKS, STEREOTYPING

October 1, 2001, NEW YORK CITY - The National Council of Churches'
membership includes several communions of Middle Eastern origin.

Representatives of several of these communions present at the NCC's October
1-2 Executive Board meeting shared their condemnation of the September 11
attacks, their concern not to be stereotyped as terrorists themselves and
their worries for persecuted Christians in other lands.

The Very Rev. John Meno, Archdiocesan General Secretary of the Syrian
Orthodox Church of Antioch, said the Syrian Christian community's U.S. roots
go back more than 100 years.

"We fought in the world wars and have gone through good and hard times.
This is our country, too.  We don't want to be stereotyped," he said.  The
communion's three hierarchs condemned the September 11 terrorist attacks.

With just 25,000-30,000 members, the communion is relatively small but "we'
re a community of a very large heart," he said.  "I was especially impressed
by our young people, who went out to collect things of real need in New York
City and Washington."

	Father Shamoun Asmar, also from the Syrian Orthodox Church, said he was
born in Turkey, educated in Iraq, and taught in Syria and Lebanon.  "I ran
from persecution," he said. Expressing his pain at the September 11 attacks,
he urged U.S. Christians also to be concerned for persecuted Christians
around the world.

	Coptic Orthodox Church in North America Subdeacon Bishoy M. Mikhail of New
York City said that communion's members also have faced stereotyping.  "Our
churches have been attacked as far away as Sydney, Australia, because we
have Arabic writing on the outside of some of our churches," he said.

"We've noticed a strong patriotism in our community," which has been in the
U.S. for 30 to 40 years, he said.  "Our church people are carrying flags and
donating blood."

	The Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, Ecumenical Officer for the Orthodox Church
in America, offered another perspective on breaking stereotypes.  "Some of
our parishes are active in a Rotary Club program that brings kids from
around the world to us for open heart surgery, especially from Russia," he
said.  "Their mothers come along.  Among them are Chechnyan children."

A mother, a Muslim, who had been here with her child and returned home, sent
a fax two or three days after the 11th saying that "if giving her life would
have prevented the crime, she would have given her life without hesitation
because of the bond of love that connected her with America and the
Christian community here.  Some of us read her letter in church before
offering prayers for those who suffered and died.  It had a tremendous
impact on people to hear that message from a Muslim," Father Kishkovsky
said.

-end-